Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

cinia.fi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 67 posts

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#51

Post by Kye »

ksec wrote: post #40

Is this Cable specifically for connection to go from EUR to JAP without going through China? I am wondering if this is made possible only because of the melting ice cap, where the "possibility" of travelling through the arctic is now a low cost issue. I am also assuming once the cable are laid, it doesn't make much of a difference whether the surface is Artic or Pacific? I am assuming the sea floor is roughly all the…

>> "I am also assuming once the cable are laid, it doesn't make much of a difference whether the surface is Artic or Pacific? I am assuming the sea floor is roughly all the same."

The ocean is incredibly difficult to explore under the best circumstances. We barely know what's down there in places with lots of traffic and a need for regular, slow, imprecise mapping. More than nothing is known about the floor there, but it's likely less precise and more out of date than places that were easier to reach. The Arctic Ocean wasn't even discovered--in the Age of Exploration sense, not in the "nobody knew about it" sense--until the 1800s. Exploration didn't properly begin until the 1950s.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Arctic-Ocean/Topography-of-...

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#52

Post by wyck »

nradov wrote: post #29
asimpletune wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also - totally unrealistic - but what if the ice freezed again, making the cables impermeable to spying and ushering in some kind of golden era of diplomacy and trust. I remember reading that in times when technology favored defense there were widespread moments of peace throughout Europe, like in the Middle Ages, so this could be something like that.

Spying by tapping into unencrypted traffic on undersea cables was done briefly during the Cold War. Now governments encrypt all their traffic so you won't get anything useful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells?wprov=sfla...

There still a lot of tapping going on, there are modern subs build specifically for this.

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#53

Post by ec109685 »

webdoodle wrote: post #39
hit8run wrote: post #15

I wonder how many parties will be going to tap that wire.

Tapping undersea cables is one of the most critical missions modern day submarines conduct. So in short: every country that can get a sub that far north.

What entities of strategic importance are still sending unencrypted data over third party fiber?

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#55

Post by freeone3000 »

sancho_panza wrote: post #54

What’s to stop a terrorist from severing one of these cables and severely debilitating the global network? I’m sure redundancy would stop such issues but still.

Same thing that stops them now -- not a lot, but it wouldn't do a tremendous amount. it's not unheard of for undersea cables to be cut by accident by fishing trawlers and the like.

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#56

Post by [deleted] »

3np wrote: post #50
ksec wrote: post #40

Is this Cable specifically for connection to go from EUR to JAP without going through China? I am wondering if this is made possible only because of the melting ice cap, where the "possibility" of travelling through the arctic is now a low cost issue. I am also assuming once the cable are laid, it doesn't make much of a difference whether the surface is Artic or Pacific? I am assuming the sea floor is roughly all the…

> Is this Cable specifically for connection to go from EUR to JAP without going through China? ...Is there really any meaningful amount of EU>JP traffic going through China? No matter what I try to increase by bandwidth between the two (from residential as well as cloud) it always gets routed through US. Usually Phoenix. Never been able to get north of ~15Mbps IIRC. I’m sure there are providers that can provide bette…

[deleted]

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#57

Post by tiernano »

zerovar wrote: post #20
tiernano wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely remember reading that there were shipping routes that would be half the time and distance if the ice was melted... And some ships run during the summer months... Mostly from Russia to Europe... Iirc...

Wendover Productions had a video on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msjuRoZ0Vu8

thats probably where i heard about it.

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#58

Post by fragmede »

3np wrote: post #50
ksec wrote: post #40

Is this Cable specifically for connection to go from EUR to JAP without going through China? I am wondering if this is made possible only because of the melting ice cap, where the "possibility" of travelling through the arctic is now a low cost issue. I am also assuming once the cable are laid, it doesn't make much of a difference whether the surface is Artic or Pacific? I am assuming the sea floor is roughly all the…

> Is this Cable specifically for connection to go from EUR to JAP without going through China? ...Is there really any meaningful amount of EU>JP traffic going through China? No matter what I try to increase by bandwidth between the two (from residential as well as cloud) it always gets routed through US. Usually Phoenix. Never been able to get north of ~15Mbps IIRC. I’m sure there are providers that can provide bette…

Not all cloud providers are equal so do your own testing on who's got the fastest internal network between Singapore and the EU that doesn't go via the US.

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#59

Post by Wohlf »

xiii1408 wrote: post #28
nnx wrote: post #8

By how much will it improve latency between EU and Asia? or US and Asia?

Unfortunately probably none, unless you live pretty far north. We're pretty close to the speed of light limit* when it comes to latency between the US and Asia, which makes sense as a straight line is over the Pacific anyway. (e.g., I get ~1.1x the theoretical min latency pinging Tokyo from my Fiber connection in the SF Bay Area) Where it seems like we're pretty far from the theoretical min is connections within the…

Your intuition is correct, undersea cables are close to direct connections while overland routes are interconnects so you'll have tons of hops. What we have for overland gets the job done so it's hard to justify the massive cost of installation. Plus there's likely competing business interests at play.

Re: Subsea Cable to Connect Asia, Europe, and North America Through the Arctic

#60

Post by drathier »

throw0101a wrote: post #11

See also the Quintillion cable: > Phase 2: Extends from Washington State to Japan. Connects Alaska to Washington State. > Phase 3: Connects Alaska to Canada. Extends through the Canadian Arctic to London, with landing stations at Thule AFB and Iceland. * https://www.quintillionglobal.com/system/out-asia-europe/

Why don't any of these websites have maps?
Post reply on HN