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Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

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Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#91
post #59

The internet includes many components: semiconductors/electronics/chips, hardware, fiber optics, communication systems, networking, wireless, software, etc. There is a lot of work that must be done in different parts of this stack for this system to work. Yet, the private sector focuses mostly on the software part, or services. I have rarely seen a start up on improving optical fiber or electronic chips. The public s…

A lot of the subsea fiber is laid down by and funded by private organizations. I’ve worked with a couple that intentionally avoid any public dollars to avoid the hassle and delays that come attached to that money.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#92
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!

Also The Victorian Internet by Standage on the history of the telegraph: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

One of my favorite books!

Some years ago I bought a dozen extra copies to give away. Just last weekend I was hiking with a few friends. One mentioned that I'd given him a copy, and he started telling me stories from it. Especially what a revolution it was when you could communicate across the world in an instant.

We got to talking about the history of undersea cables. I mentioned a very cool interactive map of the current fiber cables and promised I would look it up and send him a link.

So, before I forget, here it is:

https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#93
While I was at AWS I managed to catch a couple of internal presentations from James Hamilton where he went deep into their global network infrastructure. It’s something that’s way outside my wheelhouse but that I find fascinating nonetheless.

In particular I always found the discussion about dealing with failure of global infrastructure that’s sitting in the ocean floor particularly intriguing. One non-obvious (to me at least) aspect was what do you do if there’s a failure of the power feed equipment that’s driving the cable. In most cases the answer was “double the voltage until you can repair it properly”. He explains it far better than I ever could on his blog: https://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2017/01/cs-responder-trans...

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#94
So I'm not suggesting we don't lay more undersea cables, but has anyone done any studies on what damage laying these cables does to sealife/coral/habitats on the sea floor?

I love scuba diving and I've personally seen many coral reefs wrecked from boat anchors and fishing nets, do undersea cables do similar damage? (I'm guessing yes).

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#95

Funny how tech people (like me) care about pollution from emissions and plastic unless it’s related to rocket launches or huge plastic cables on the ocean floors. Then, nobody mentions it.

Do rocket launches or cables on the ocean actually contribute a significant percentage to world pollution? I would imagine it's insignificant.

Rocket launches definitely do.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#96
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do rocket launches or cables on the ocean actually contribute a significant percentage to world pollution? I would imagine it's insignificant.

Rocket launches definitely do.

Do you have any numbers on that?

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#97
post #59

The internet includes many components: semiconductors/electronics/chips, hardware, fiber optics, communication systems, networking, wireless, software, etc. There is a lot of work that must be done in different parts of this stack for this system to work. Yet, the private sector focuses mostly on the software part, or services. I have rarely seen a start up on improving optical fiber or electronic chips. The public s…

> The public sector builds the infrastructure, often following decades of investment and work. It does? I don't think I follow. In your list of components, every single one of those is, at least in the US, largely or almost entirely handled by private companies. The big semiconductor companies are private. I actually don't think there are any notable public entities that make their own chips. Hardware companies (I'm…

Oh no!

Consider high speed optical communication. The invention of transistor, laser, optical fiber, optical amplifiers, modulators, communication and information theory, DSP, and many other important technologies, was funded by taxpayers for a long time. You may say, some of it happened in old bell labs, but bell labs was a state-subsidized monopoly, rather an exception, and even things like information theory were really developed at MIT and other public research labs (Shannon had an office at Bell Labs for some time but had limited contact there).

Consider machine learning. From 1940s to 2010, neural networks were funded by governments grants, and developed at universities. The governments even funded building practical applications out of deep neural networks, for example, in the area of speech recognition, unsuccessfully. The periods are now called AI winters. It’s really in the past 15 years that the subject has become practical and companies are building products based on it. FANG is capturing the profits of this decades-long research and development.

Today there are millions of graduate students and postdocs and professors at universities performing risky research and experiments. A lot of it doesn’t pan out. The public bears the risk. Once an idea begins to work, it’s handed over to private sector for further development and bringing the work to market.

Most of the research papers published at conferences and journals, Nobel prizes, Fields Medalists etc come out of universities, not startups or FANG.

Yes, Google installed fiber cables (perhaps even bought it from Corning or the like, and also contracted out the installment). But that’s not infrastructure R&D.

I think there is no denying that basic long term research is done by and large in public sector. Private sector is still focused on short term product research.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#98
post #88
post #59

The internet includes many components: semiconductors/electronics/chips, hardware, fiber optics, communication systems, networking, wireless, software, etc. There is a lot of work that must be done in different parts of this stack for this system to work. Yet, the private sector focuses mostly on the software part, or services. I have rarely seen a start up on improving optical fiber or electronic chips. The public s…

I'm a huge supporter of publicly funded research. I think the things that have come out of DARPA, NASA, the NSF and other US funding bodies are incredibly important. Having said that, what you've said is basically wrong. > I have rarely seen a start up on improving optical fiber or electronic chips. Unless you are trying to be pedantic by saying it has to be a startup rather than a private company this is completely…

Right, those are examples, but what’s the proportion of hardware and software companies in US (big companies or startups)?

How much of VC funding goes to companies focused on services or software vs hardware or infrastructure?They actually write down their areas of focus on their websites. I don’t see many of them stating they fund companies developing better chips, optical amplifiers, fibers or other pieces of infrastructure. It’s mostly services, software, apps, consumer applications, and similar.

And to my point, how much do you make if you are a hardware engineer at Intel (a large hardware company), vs a software engineer at say Google (a large software company) with similar years of experience?

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#99
post #98
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a huge supporter of publicly funded research. I think the things that have come out of DARPA, NASA, the NSF and other US funding bodies are incredibly important. Having said that, what you've said is basically wrong. > I have rarely seen a start up on improving optical fiber or electronic chips. Unless you are trying to be pedantic by saying it has to be a startup rather than a private company this is completely…

Right, those are examples, but what’s the proportion of hardware and software companies in US (big companies or startups)? How much of VC funding goes to companies focused on services or software vs hardware or infrastructure?They actually write down their areas of focus on their websites. I don’t see many of them stating they fund companies developing better chips, optical amplifiers, fibers or other pieces of infra…

VCs don’t invest in chip manufacturing improvements because improvements are incremental so there's no return. But the point remains: it's private investment.

They do invest in new chips. There's a bunch of "AI" chips funded by VC which are focused on the outside returns available by improving training performance. These are all funded by private investment.

Re: Google's Subsea Fiber Optics

#100
post #66

On my desk sits a paperweight. It is a segment of some ancient undersea cable. About 2 inches in diameter, sheathed in lead with eight main wires and numerous smaller ones in a circular arrangement. Weighs a ton. My dad worked for AT&T and received it as a gift...

omg... I need something like this!
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