Google's Subsea Fiber Optics • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#41

Post by closedloop129 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:18 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #14

gnfargbl wrote: post #6

I make 340Tbit/sec about 1.1x10^11 GiByte/month. GCP premium tier networking is priced at $0.08/GB, so at 80% load that cable would, very naively, have the potential to bring in $7B/month in revenue. I'm sure they only take in a fraction of that, and their costs are substantial. But even so... cloud bandwidth is overpriced.

You’re thinking about average throughput, while these cables need to be provisioned for max throughput, which can be completely different. Having said that, cloud bandwidth is indeed overpriced; but at the same time, given that Google Cloud is still burning money, can it perhaps be argued that bandwidth is one of the money makers that allow for other services to be free? I recall that from the old webhosting days, th…

Is it good for the economy though?

Resources are used depending on prices. If the costs for providing bandwidth are low and everything else is expensive, but the prices are the other way round, then the economy optimizes to waste resources. That's not sustainable.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#42

Post by joshuahaglund » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:24 PM UTC

schubart wrote: post #37

> A message took over 17 hours to deliver, at 2 minutes and 5 seconds per letter by Morse code A letter in Morse code is made of up to four “dits” or “dahs”. Why would it take more than two minutes to send one letter?

The signal was weak. An attempt at fixing the problem, boosting the voltage, caused the insulation to fail. Later cables added repeaters along the way to maintain the signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable#...

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#43

Post by wil421 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:24 PM UTC

vfclists wrote: post #33

When they say a single cable can deliver 340 Tbps capacity, do they mean a single fiber strand, or a bundle of strands in a sheath that we know as "cables"?

Pretty sure they mean the sheath that contains the bundles of fiber cables.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#44

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:40 PM UTC

controversial97 wrote: post #38

ortusdux wrote: post #5

I wonder how long it will be before we see the first hollow-core fiber subsea cables. They are 50% faster, and tests from the last year or two have seen record low signal losses. https://www.laserfocusworld.com/fiber-optics/article/1419605... https://www.ofsoptics.com/wp-content/uploads/Hollow-Core-Fib...

I might be totally wrong; It seems likely to me that, due to capillary action, if a hollow undersea fiber gets physically cut then seawater would flow into the hollow center. The ends of the fiber might be at different depths with a pressure difference that could move water a long way into the fiber. I imagine the length that water got into would be ruined even if the water was pushed out again. I conjecture that und…

[deleted]

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#45

Post by Diederich » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:42 PM UTC

elteto wrote: post #34

Unrelated, but if interested in ocean cables check out “A Thread Across the Ocean” by Steele. It’s the story of the first transatlantic cable. It’s a riveting read that is hard to put down. Full of interesting technical details intertwined with the stories of the characters involved. Highly recommended!

Seconded! I haven't read through a book that quickly in quite a long time.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#46

Post by geph2021 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:46 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #5

I wonder how long it will be before we see the first hollow-core fiber subsea cables. They are 50% faster, and tests from the last year or two have seen record low signal losses. https://www.laserfocusworld.com/fiber-optics/article/1419605... https://www.ofsoptics.com/wp-content/uploads/Hollow-Core-Fib...

With hallow-core, Spread Networks[1] could be back on top again!

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_Networks

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#47

Post by Melatonic » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:48 PM UTC

Are we gonna get the Google Moon Cable anytime soon? :-D

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#48

Post by ortusdux » Wed, May 18, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

theideaofcoffee wrote: post #24

happyopossum wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are 50% faster No, pretty sure light still travels through them at C. What they can do is carry more data, largely by having lower error rates.

'c' is dependent on the medium. The value of c as it is commonly known, 300 million meters per second, is in vacuum. Light traveling through other media is affected by its index of refraction, in the case of silica fiber, that is approximately 1.5 so radiation propagates much slower through silica than it does a vacuum. Since gases have low refractive indicies already, within a hundred ppm or so of a vacuum, you coul…

I've heard that high frequency traders are interested in Starlink's planned laser links because they could open up routes that are faster than traditional terrestrial fiber.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#49

Post by guipsp » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #48

theideaofcoffee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'c' is dependent on the medium. The value of c as it is commonly known, 300 million meters per second, is in vacuum. Light traveling through other media is affected by its index of refraction, in the case of silica fiber, that is approximately 1.5 so radiation propagates much slower through silica than it does a vacuum. Since gases have low refractive indicies already, within a hundred ppm or so of a vacuum, you coul…

I've heard that high frequency traders are interested in Starlink's planned laser links because they could open up routes that are faster than traditional terrestrial fiber.

I think that if you are a HFT, you probably have a server set up next door.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#50

Post by esoterae » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

controversial97 wrote: post #38

ortusdux wrote: post #5

I wonder how long it will be before we see the first hollow-core fiber subsea cables. They are 50% faster, and tests from the last year or two have seen record low signal losses. https://www.laserfocusworld.com/fiber-optics/article/1419605... https://www.ofsoptics.com/wp-content/uploads/Hollow-Core-Fib...

I might be totally wrong; It seems likely to me that, due to capillary action, if a hollow undersea fiber gets physically cut then seawater would flow into the hollow center. The ends of the fiber might be at different depths with a pressure difference that could move water a long way into the fiber. I imagine the length that water got into would be ruined even if the water was pushed out again. I conjecture that und…

IIRC individual fibers are terminated every Nkm at a repeater. Not that it wouldn't be spendy, but I would also conjecture replacing a segment of fixed length instead of just gluing the ends back together might still be a reasonably strong constraint on unplanned repair cost (and also probably providing a pretty strong lower constraint as well--notably higher than solid core).