www

[UmBongo]

What makes it able for me to view a website made and opperated from, say, the USA? how does the info leave America and get to Britain if there is no phone line under the sea... There is probably some simple answer for thisthat i just havnt seen yet!

[QmunkE]

Satellites beam telecommunications all over the planet. You send a request for the information down your phone line, it passes through a series of machines all over the place, finally reaching the web server, which sends you the appropriate data back, probably along a completely different path to the one your request followed. It all happens very fast.

[CapnCurry]

Actually, there is a phone line under the sea... it's called the Transatlantic Cable, and it's been carrying communications for over a century.  You can read all about its history here: http://www.history-magazine.com/cable.html

But today, we use a more high-tech solution: communications satellites.  Most of the information that gets across the pond, and around the rest of the world, gets there by way of wireless satellite relays. 

[lukey121]

Of course there is a phone line under the sea.  How do you think phone calls were made years ago?

[MargeB]

Most of the information you access "from America" will already be in the UK, even though it comes from a 'dot com" address, because it is cached on UK servers. Since more than one person will look at the same info (most likely), and ISPs are all charged for transatlantic (subatlantic?) traffic, it makes sense to keep copies in the UK.

I heard that the Americans were planning on extending the Echelon snoop to tap into the aforementioned Atlantic Cable, by using a submersible device of some kind, and a splice. Don't know if there were any developements on this.

{Hello Mr Bush, you're doing a great job, keepify it up}

[Pi]

Everyone probably knows this, but the telephone calls route through geostationary orbitting satellites, which were the brain child of Arthur C Clarke .....