Under pressure: Keeping cables dry in south Louisiana

Abstract

Climate change is impacting the maintenance and repair of last-mile internet connections. In this case study, I describe how telecommunication workers based in south Louisiana maintain ageing digital infrastructures that require cable pressurization, a method used to keep buried wires dry. This work is becoming more difficult due to stronger and more frequent hurricanes, an effect of climate change that is tied to this region’s history with extractive industries. Additionally, this maintenance work can come at the cost of being able to update these ageing infrastructures. I argue that maintaining infrastructures in this context is to keep artefacts functioning within an unstable landscape. Ensuring that internet services continue against the backdrop of climate change requires shifts in considering how networks are embedded in specific geographies in relational and material ways.