WORLD EXCLUSIVE
By Our Investigations Team

The world's internet is controlled by a secret facility on a former World War Two radar base in Suffolk, we can reveal.

Everything from bandwidth to storage, from operations of the globe's largest websites like Google to password recovery services, is overseen in a network of underground bunkers at the former RAF Bawdsey centre.

The Suffolk Gazette was given an exclusive tour of the high-security facility, including its dumping ground for long-gone internet services such as Friends Reunited and Myspace, as well as a close-up look of the radar masts that allow Wifi to work throughout the world.



First we were shown the nerve centre of the world's internet, which features a bank of hi-tech hardware with dials showing the current broadband connection speed of networks around the world.

<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/more-speed.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/more-speed.jpg" alt="internet speed" width="800" height="514" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6533" /></a><i>Bandwidth: Your internet speed is determined on this machine</i></center><br><br>

The system features a large metal wheel - so that if the internet becomes too slow during peak periods, bandwidth can be increased by turning the wheel in a clockwise direction. Mr Robert Jameson manages the speed service, and is <em>pictured above</em> next to his complex machinery.

He explained this is the most important room of the whole site, because if the power is cut, internet everywhere will be lost, sending the entire world into chaos. As such, an important lever behind the door says: "Do not pull lever," because if it was pulled, the system would shut down.

<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/pull-lever.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/pull-lever.jpg" alt="Do not pull lever" width="500" height="333" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6534" /></a><i>Warning: Do not pull the lever</i></center>

It has been an effective safeguard. Only once was it accidentally turned off when cleaner Mrs Janet Timkins, from Orford, knocked it with her backside while vacuuming the room.

The next part of our fascinating tour - which we secured after sending a Freedom of Information request to the UK Government - took us to a series of rooms where some of the world's biggest websites and services are managed.

First up was the Google room, where operators wait for users to ask a question on the popular search engine. When a search term comes in, they quickly look through their archives of data in order to return the desired answers.

<em>Pictured below</em> are Google experts Ralph Biggins and Steve Johnson searching for answers to serve up to internet users.

<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/google-search.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/google-search.jpg" alt="google search experts" width="798" height="300" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6535" /></a><i>Top answers: Google staff search for top results</center></i><br><br>


 


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