31–40 of 113 posts
It still amazes me that we laid giant bundles of cabling at the bottom of the ocean and they're as reliable as they are.
Especially given the first one laid in 1850 failed within hours http://atlantic-cable.com/stamps/Cableships/indexstc.htm
Why does Saudi Arabia have so many?
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Especially given the first one laid in 1850 failed within hours http://atlantic-cable.com/stamps/Cableships/indexstc.htm
A subsequent attempt was made by the Great Eastern* which, in my humble opinion, is the coolest ship ever conceived. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern
Does each cable actually lie at the sea bed? What if the route comes across a really deep part of the ocean?
This long article from Wired in 1996, Mother Earth Mother Board [1], would answer your question. It is long, it took me more than a couple of hours to read, but it's also my all-time favourite article from any magazine, and whenever the topic of submarine cables comes up on Hacker News I often see this link. [1] http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html Edit: Also, it's written by Neal Stephenson fo…
I consider it my small contribution to the world to make sure as many nerds as possible get to read that story.
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I live in southeast AK. An earthquake near Glacier Bay this month broke one of the undersea cables, which caused an outage for customers of one service provider. I had no idea there were multiple cables to southeast, until I read about the response to this incident. The Capital City Weekly has a good article about the recent incident, which also includes a short history of communication cables in Alaska [0]. Basicall…
I wonder why they didn't just lay them along the alcan highway? Surely that would have been a zillion times cheaper.
Does each cable actually lie at the sea bed? What if the route comes across a really deep part of the ocean?
This long article from Wired in 1996, Mother Earth Mother Board [1], would answer your question. It is long, it took me more than a couple of hours to read, but it's also my all-time favourite article from any magazine, and whenever the topic of submarine cables comes up on Hacker News I often see this link. [1] http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html Edit: Also, it's written by Neal Stephenson fo…
Why does Saudi Arabia have so many?
Their strategic location as a middle of everything - plus their willingness to exploit it by providing the services.
Hard to imagine NSA intercepts most of that.
all five cables landing at that tiny country in the Horn of Africa, Djibouti? they terminate into half a floor of a single building about 150ft from the shoreline. the NSA has been tapping submarine optical cables since the early nineties. for the patch panels they can't get to, there's always the covert submarine they are purported to have.
I recommend 'A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable' by John Steele Gordon. [1] From description, "But in 1866, the Old and New Worlds were united by the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic. John Steele Gordon's book chronicles this extraordinary achievement -- the brainchild of American businessman Cyrus Field and one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth ce…
Also very enjoyable, and somewhat shorter (though still very long): 'Mother Earth Mother Board' [1], Neal Stephenson's essay on the laying of the FLAG cable, and related history. [1] http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
Great story about the internet's adolescence.