Submarine Cable Map • Hacker News Board

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#31

Post by steveh73 » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:26 PM UTC

squeed wrote: post #21

I'm surprised at how well connected Australia is. Why is their internet still so expensive?

There's only 2 connections to the USA at the moment, and SCC charges monopoly prices. There is another AUNZUSA connection being built in 2014 and another AUNZ connection built in 2013 (the 2 grey lines). Southern Cross already dropped their prices 44% in response.

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#32

Post by jleader » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #27

I found it absolutely fascinating how some continents use underwater cables to connect different locations within a continent (Africa, notably, seems virtually surrounded), while others seem to only have significant outbound connections (North America, Australia). I can only guess it has more to do with whether you cross national boundaries (since even the US has underwater cables bridging the mainland to Alaska) tha…

I would assume it has more to do with how many intermediate places within the continent you want to connect to. If you're connecting two cities on the African coast, and there's really no infrastructure in-between that needs (will pay for) connection, and the roads in between are poorly maintained, it's probably more economical to go by sea. Someplace like the US, if you're running cable from say Boston to NY, first of all, you also want to wire up all the towns and cities in between, and you've got interstate highways so your service trucks can easily get to all parts of the cable, you've got existing utility tunnels you can use, etc. In that case, going by sea is an unnecessary expense.

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#33

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

troymc wrote: post #25

Wow, there are two cables running from northern Norway to Longyearbyen, on the island of Svalbard! According to Wikipedia, "Longyearbyen has approximately 2,060 inhabitants (at the end of 2007..." The total population of Svalbard is not much more. Edit/Add: The cable length is 2,714 km.

[deleted]

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#34

Post by russss » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

troymc wrote: post #25

Wow, there are two cables running from northern Norway to Longyearbyen, on the island of Svalbard! According to Wikipedia, "Longyearbyen has approximately 2,060 inhabitants (at the end of 2007..." The total population of Svalbard is not much more. Edit/Add: The cable length is 2,714 km.

The reason for that is there's a an important satellite ground station on Svalbard - it's in an ideal place to communicate with polar-orbiting satellites:

http://www.ksat.no/node/77

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Undersea_Cable_System

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#35

Post by kahawe » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

I know this is incredibly childish and probably impossible given the elasticity of the cables laid out BUT I would really like to tug on a submarine cable or even just a thread that goes from Euroland over to the USA and have it move and wiggle over there. And then next up: a submarine miniature tunnel/hose/pipe to send a small little vehicle across. I can't help it.

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#36

Post by kenrikm » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:33 PM UTC

That's so awesome, I remember seeing a special on the Discovery Channel years ago (10+) on how they laid cable for the phone lines I would love to see how it's done now and how it's connected to backbones etc..

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#37

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:34 PM UTC

troymc wrote: post #25

Wow, there are two cables running from northern Norway to Longyearbyen, on the island of Svalbard! According to Wikipedia, "Longyearbyen has approximately 2,060 inhabitants (at the end of 2007..." The total population of Svalbard is not much more. Edit/Add: The cable length is 2,714 km.

[deleted]

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#38

Post by Jtsummers » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

shimonamit wrote: post #29

I see no cables actually get routed through the Suez canal, even though many cables come up the Red Sea. The same is true for the Panama canal. Is it because they are too shallow? Maybe too concentrated?

I think it's due to accessibility and the way the canals work. The Panama canal itself is actually a series of waterways connected via gates. Allowing ships to be raised and lowered as they need to change elevation. I doubt that'd be very suitable conditions for laying cable. Far easier to make connections to land based routes on either side of the isthmus.

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#39

Post by jleader » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #30

I want to know what optics they are using. On segments that are 7,000 miles long - are there active optic splice boxes along the length of the cable? Or are they using lasers that actually push 7K miles?

The diagram of the Polar King cable-laying ship that gk1 posted here shows a "repeater stack" near the holds full of cable. I assume the repeaters are spliced into the cable as it's being laid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#... describes the repeaters in a modern submarine telephone cable, and says: "The optic fiber used in undersea cables is chosen for its exceptional clarity, permitting runs of more than 100 kilometers between repeaters to minimize the number of amplifiers and the distortion they cause."

Re: Submarine Cable Map

#40

Post by Stratoscope » Tue, Feb 28, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

RobertKohr wrote: post #20

Anyone know how to get the gray/white land/ocean view in google maps. I want to use it for another project.

Use the Styled Maps options in the Maps API:

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/st...

See the mapStyles object in the submarine map source code for the settings they are using.

You can use this interactive page to experiment with map styles:

http://gmaps-samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/...