I wonder if Google have plans for Cape Town? It is the most tech savvy city on the continent
Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
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Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#12Submarine cables are a mystery to a lot of people. I had to show my dad a complete map of the cables once to convince him they exist. He just couldn’t fathom we’re actually able to run thousands of km of cables at the bottom of the ocean.
Well I still have trouble with that, and a map wouldn't help very much. Imagine convincing governments to make the huge en-devour of placing thousands of kilometers of cables under the sea, and maintaining them, just for some "nerd stuff". If they did, they probably had a very good reason convincing them.
Except that is generally not governments doing it; it is private companies. It is pure profit motive. Despite the great cost, the cables are profitable.
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#13Would this only be used for services l/sites that run on Google Cloud? Or does the entire Internet benefit directly
It's funded by Google completely according to TFA, and it's filed under "Infrastructure - Google Cloud Platform" - I'd hazard a guess that it's probably just for Google Cloud. They might extend it for AMP sites, maybe..
I highly doubt that they would refuse to sell bandwidth if there is a market for it. It is a very valuable market.
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funded by Google completely according to TFA, and it's filed under "Infrastructure - Google Cloud Platform" - I'd hazard a guess that it's probably just for Google Cloud. They might extend it for AMP sites, maybe..
I highly doubt that they would refuse to sell bandwidth if there is a market for it. It is a very valuable market.
Of course they sell it, though Google Cloud
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happens if the cable stops working? What are the troubleshooting steps?
Figure out roughly where the problem is (a number of ways of doing this), then send a boat out with a hook to grab the cable off the bottom of the ocean. Pull it up to the surface, fix it, and lower it back down. Incredibly expensive operation, so you want to avoid this if at all possible...
When we're saying incredibly expensive, what are we talking here? $10M repair job?
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#16Submarine cables are a mystery to a lot of people. I had to show my dad a complete map of the cables once to convince him they exist. He just couldn’t fathom we’re actually able to run thousands of km of cables at the bottom of the ocean.
I heartily recommend Andrew Blum's book Tubes: Behind the Scenes at the Internet for any non-technical folks interested in the physical infrastructure that makes all that internet magic happen. It's more in the travel memoir/popular history genres than actual engineering, but a very atmospheric layman's introduction.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23047146-tubes
And of course, if you're ever in SW England, the Museum of Submarine Telegraphy near Penzance is an awesome geek-out experience.
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#17Great to read this. I’ve Experienced problems when the WACs cable goes down so anything to improve comms is good by me. How much better is optical switching btw?
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#18I wonder if Google have plans for Cape Town? It is the most tech savvy city on the continent
They should. Amazon is hoovering up all the local talent currently
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#19This is great. SA feels quite far away from the rest of the Internet (think 200ms) so anything that helps improve connectivity is a possive. Especially since this might foreshadow a local data center there. Azure has tech there. Google doesn't. Yet
Re: Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa
#20This is great. SA feels quite far away from the rest of the Internet (think 200ms) so anything that helps improve connectivity is a possive. Especially since this might foreshadow a local data center there. Azure has tech there. Google doesn't. Yet
Really? Sometimes when there is a problem with out of SA connectivity the only non-local websites that work are Google and YouTube. I’ve got 20ms ping times so Google must have a point of presence in SA.