

Aboard an Alcatel-Lucent undersea cable ship - timf
http://news.cnet.com/2300-1035_3-10004733.html

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smithbits
Obligatory link to the absolutely brilliant Neal Stephenson article about a
very long fiber optic cable. "Mother Earth Mother Board"
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html>

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win_ini
This is my all-time favourite Wired article, a fascinating read...so much so,
that I still have the original print edition.

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wallflower
Obligatory link to a fascinating (because it is so mundane) photograph of the
East Coast terminus of a fiber link

The photographer, Taryn Simon, has a fascinating book of images of places that
are not accessible to the public ("An American Index of the Hidden and
Unfamiliar")

> My favourite is the Transatlantic Submarine Cables Reaching Land (VSNL
> International, Avon, NJ). It is really scary to realize that something that
> looks so fragile and mundane as those orange cables holds the key to all the
> virtuality that has come to almost constitute the essence of my life.

<http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/wow/0aaechellle.jpg>

<http://tarynsimon.com/tarynsimon1_cryonics.html>

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danshapiro
The best part of the article is this quote:

This is the cable-splicing machine used on board the Ile de Batz--one of the
most delicate and precise pieces of equipment on a ship laden with very
heavyweight gear.

Next to it is shown a picture of a fiber optic cable split in half, and a roll
of electrical tape.

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oiuytgfrgh
And the roll of electrical tape is to stop the very fragile and expensive
splice rolling off the table.

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sliverstorm
Damnit, I thought 'undersea cable ship' meant the ship was a submarine.

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Devilboy
How do they power the repeaters?

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trafficlight
An undersea cable is made up of a about a dozen different layers of
alternating conductors, braided jackets, and water-proofing. Power is provided
by a conductor surrounding the fiber in center of the cable.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable>

