"Undersea cable damage is hardly rare--indeed, more than 50 repair operations were mounted in the Atlantic alone last year, according to marine cable repair company Global Marine Systems." -- http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20152/?a=f

I see no reason why these cables would be any different, though as noted in the same article, the fact that there are far fewer means that each cut is more significant (and thus newsworthy). The rest of the article is fairly grounding, too.