Intro 99 of all internet traffic from this
video to your pokemon go account to your family whatsapp group runs on a hidden
network of undersea cables why should you care because modern life is increasingly
dependent on those slinky subaquatic wires and they get attacked by sharks from time to
time how do they work what's the future for them join us today as we plunge the depths and
ask how the internet travels across oceans Submarine cables according to the authoritative submarine cable
map website there are currently 493 active or actively under construction sub-sea internet
cables criss-crossing the globe these range from the relatively modest 300 kilometer azerbaijan
to turkmenistan wire running under the black sea to the absolutely gargantuan 6600 kilometer
maria cable linking virginia beach in the us with bill bow in northern spain maria weighs
the same as 24 blue whales apparently the firm's laying down this serpentine superhighway
worldwide there's now 1.5 million kilometers of undersea data wires arcadey about how much it
all costs but professional estimates indicate a typical transoceanic cable should set you
back between three and four hundred millions of dollars which seems like a lot because they're not
especially thick typically around the girth of a garden hose and that includes layers of protective
thixotropic jelly around the all-important fiber optic core plus multiple plastic sheaths and
copper wiring to power the thing but even so on average they can ferry an awesome 100
gigabytes per second in data with newer and forthcoming cables able to transmit 400 gigabytes
per second so how does so much data fit down such How do they work slim channels part of the answer is an extremely
sophisticated data wrangling technique known as dense wavelength division multiplexing put simply
dense wavelength division multiplexing lets data providers use more than one wavelength of light
to convey information fibre optically instead several wavelengths are employed simultaneously
and stacked creating astonishing data speeds this happens at buzzing data center-like landing sites
at either end of the cable are the cables just straight forward long wires not quite every 70
to 100 kilometers or so along the seabed cables are punctuated with so-called repeaters these
essentially serve as amplifiers keeping the signal strength up to par over long distances that's
why the cables incorporate copper conductors by the way carrying up to 10 000 volts of dc
to power the repeaters how are the cables late they're first coiled into vast cylindrical drums
on specialized cable laying ships as much as a year's planning and charting will go into plotting
the perfect trans-oceanic route bad locations for undersea cables include anywhere volcanic or
anywhere especially earthquake or mudslide prone or anywhere heavily trolled by fishermen the
cable is spooled out the back of the ship at a sedate pace of around 10 kilometers an hour if the
ship encounters bad weather the captain can decide whether to break off the cord tie it to a boy and
retreat to karma waters when the storm passes the ship returns to the boy and picks up where it left
off accidents and outages on the cables can and do occur in 2012 hurricane sandy in the u.s knocked
out several key transatlantic cables disrupting networks for hours in 2011 the fukushima
earthquake in japan caused similar online the vast majority of such disruptions however
are the result of human carelessness typically trawler nets or wayward ships anchors cables
situated close to the shore are significantly more at risk from such disruption as such the
nearer to lander cable is the more likely it'll be carefully armor-plated many are even dug
into the seabed in long dedicated trenches carved out using ship-drawn plows awesomely sharks
have been spotted nibbling on one of google's subsea cables get your teeth into this 2014 clip
more sinister even than that the us government has consistently warned of interference in the
cables from hostile foreign powers like russia or china the us government should know all about
that whistleblower edward snowden revealed in 2013 how the nsa had no qualms eavesdropping on fiber
optic communications the geopolitical implications of undersea cables are also fascinating last year
the australian government intervened to prevent chinese technology giant huawei from installing
a cable connecting australia with the solomon islands the fear is that china could use the link
to gain access to australia's sensitive internal networks so who actually owns these cables that's
an interesting question it's an expensive business Who owns the cables so historically nations or quasi national telecom
providers have picked up the bill the world's biggest owner of cables remains america's a t with
a stake in some 230 000 kilometers of undersea cable the second biggest owner is china telecom
frequently cables are owned by groups or consortia of up to 50 separate owners including tech firms
local government agencies and other businesses and while this model helps spread the initial
cost it's less helpful when something goes wrong and nobody can agree who has to put on a wetsuit
and do something about it increasingly big tech is recognizing its scope for growth is limited
by the undersea cable network so over the past few years the overwhelming majority of investment
in undersea cable infrastructure has come from companies like facebook which currently owns
nearly 100 000 kilometers of cables google owns roughly the same amount amazon has its own massive
private network hooking up the online giant's mighty aws data centers through cables traversing
the atlantic pacific and indian oceans plus the mediterranean and the red sea and the south
china sea the tech giants like to frame these vast environmentally disruptive infrastructure
projects a civilization enhancing largesse on their part but they're also shareholder companies
remember who know perfectly well that increasing the number of human beings online is the only way
they can continue to grow hang on a second you're probably thinking what about starlink isn't
our old mate elon about to make the internet wireless any day now for now cable is by
far the cheapest and most efficient means of eating vast packets of data over incredibly
long distances fast even normally bullish musk says starlink is only aimed at people who don't
presently enjoy access to high speed fiber but who knows how that'll pan out in a decade or two
for now the future is very much undersea cables only this summer google and facebook announced
a joint initiative to build an undersea cable named apricot apricot will link up singapore
japan guam the philippines taiwan and indonesia by the year 2024. the longest subaquatic cable
ever a 45 000 kilometer billion dollar monster called to africa that will link up 33 nations was
just bankrolled by a facebook-led consortium what do you think will mankind's ingenious submarine
network one day look as obsolete as the telegraph let us know in the comments and don't forget to
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