Think about how many of these cables are tapped by governments, and the technology + skill needed to implement that tapping.
Submarine Cable Map
51–60 of 114 posts
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#52I 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…
Of course telecom's is generally broken up by country, and most countries with a coastline have at least one undersea cable.
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#53Why are there so many cables to Alaska?
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
That means that in a ~7K mile cable run, they have ~110 repeater stacks. Wow, that's a lot. I am still interested in who's optics/equipment are in those repeater stacks and how they power them.
They are "powered" by lasers themselves. No electronics involved; excess energy from a pumping laser boosts the intensity of the data laser, using sections of special doped fiber. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier#Doped_fiber...
Magic, got it.
But seriously, that is damn cool - while I have been in IT/networking for a long time - I was not aware of "pumping lasers" as everything I have done, even in designing massive fiber cable plants have all been for relatively short distances.
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#55I 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…
Before some of the recent cables East Africa mostly had to get by with satillite internet. That wasn't fun.
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#56I'm surprised at how well connected Australia is. Why is their internet still so expensive?
Price is usually not set at "Cost + Profit %" (this is called the Labour Theory of Value), instead organisations charge what the market can bear.
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Submarine cable systems often employ repeaters (hardened EDFAs). I remember one vendor bragging that not one of their units had EVER failed in service. If you want to see what they look like: http://www.nec.com/en/global/prod/nw/submarine/product/ns-se...
Actually, there are much better photos in this PDF: http://www.nec.com/en/global/prod/nw/submarine/pdf/submarine... Look at the last page for a photo of one of the amps with people in the frame for scale.
That PDF is great, thanks. Jesus - they are huge. Earlier in the PDF, they appear small.
Is that a single strand they are amplifying with these? I'd like to find cost figures for how much it is to run a single fiber trans-oceanically (if thats a word).
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#58I 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 noticed quite a cluster on the South American coastline - Brazil-Argentina coastline looks like it's got 4 or 5 that go nowhere but that coastline. You'd think Brazil was stable and prosperous enough that they'd go with landlines.
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#59I 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 noticed quite a cluster on the South American coastline - Brazil-Argentina coastline looks like it's got 4 or 5 that go nowhere but that coastline. You'd think Brazil was stable and prosperous enough that they'd go with landlines.
The population is strongly clustered on some big cities in the coast, the roads aren't super safe, and the terrain around the coastline is not flat, so it's probably just cheaper to lay them out in the ocean.
Re: Submarine Cable Map
#60I cannot help but salivate at the dense links connecting US/Europe and US/Asia.
Here in Kenya we only have 3 cables. Since last week the internet has been very slow after the main cable was severed by a ship anchor. The second cable seemed to have problems upstream so all the traffic has been routed to the third cable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/28/east-africa-inte...