Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa

Post by bobviolier » Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

rdevsrex wrote: post #20

Havoc wrote: post #19

This 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.

Post by emiliobumachar » Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #21

wereHamster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are buried only when close to shores or in other high risk areas. There is no point in burying a cable if the sea bed is 3 miles under the surface. There is still danger, from animals biting into the cable (sharks are known to do this). But the cables are wrapped in steel cables so not even a shark should be able to cut through.

> There is no point in burying a cable if the sea bed is 3 miles under the surface. There is a point, it's just not something we're able to do. You can get the cable onto the sea bed by lowering it from the surface. We know how to get to the surface. To bury it, you'd need to run a digging operation at the bottom of the ocean.

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 10:06 AM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #15

cperciva wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Post by Symbiote » Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #26

hanniabu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we're saying incredibly expensive, what are we talking here? $10M repair job?

I googled and found this https://ore.catapult.org.uk/app/uploads/2018/02/Export-Cable... Costs between £5.3m and £15.5m Wikipedia has a nice gif of the repair process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable... Funny random thing from that. In 1959 the Americans got annoyed by a Russian trawler breaking their cable and complained they'd broken the Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegra…

Post by vidarh » Sat, Jun 29, 2019, 11:22 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #29

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 M…

My favorite Wired article of all time was the 1996 article written by Neal Stephenson all about undersea cables. I can’t believe I was able to find a link, but I may still have the physical copy someplace. That was an amazing example of long form writing and was my introduction to Stephenson. https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/