
How the Internet Travels Across Oceans - anuragsoni
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/10/technology/internet-cables-oceans.html
======
lordnacho
I've rented some of these lines as part of a financial trading infrastructure.

What's immediately obvious is the line is much faster than going over the
public internet, and there's no jitter: every time you ping it comes back in
the same amount of time, whereas the internet pings will vary by several ms.

You also become acutely aware of cable breaks. Somehow this happens quite
often under the English Channel. The network operator will start sending you
emails that say

\- Cable break detected

\- Loading ship (can take ages)

\- Found the break

\- Patched it

\- Back up

Occasionally bad weather would delay it.

~~~
ksec
>Somehow this happens quite often under the English Channel.

How often? Once or twice a year?

And what were the reason it breaking so often? I thought the English Channel
were quite free of Cargo Ships and the like.

~~~
jstanley
> I thought the English Channel were quite free of Cargo Ships and the like.

The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzJwXxUY3MM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzJwXxUY3MM)

~~~
ksec
Lived near Brighton for years and had never knew that! I stand corrected.

------
cyberjunkie
I have a certain admiration and appreciation for this sort of thing, and every
article that describes how the internet is physically interconnected.

Having seen internet connectivity in India slowly grow from only satellite-
based connectivity, to having private internal interconnecting hubs within the
country for bandwidth providers and ISPs to reduce latency, then news of every
new submarine line improving bandwidth and latency, thereby reducing pricing.
Going from getting 135ms - 200ms via dialup locally, to getting 60ms to
Singapore and Hong Kong while playing Counter Strike and Quake 3. It was such
a high!

Each development was so critical and it brought me great joy, and excitement.
Still does!

------
mediocrejoker
If anyone is interested in a really well written travel essay about how one of
those cables was installed in the 90s, this one never seems to get old:
[https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/)

~~~
nemild
And for an older take, I loved this book on the first transatlantic telegraph
cable as a child:

Cyrus Field's Big Dream: The Daring Effort to Lay the First Transatlantic
Telegraph Cable

~~~
lb1lf
I have a quite good book on the shelves on the very same subject, but I am
unable to locate it at present.

For a slightly wider take, Arthur C. Clarke's "How the world was one" is a
most readable account of how telecommunications has made the world smaller,
starting with the first submarine cables, proceeding with satellites (of
course he would!) before devoting a section to fibre optics at the end.
Brilliant account.

------
vxNsr
This is perfect.

Can't tell you the number of times I've had someone insist that the internet
was on satellites.

Using terms like "the cloud" and with everything bring wireless definitely
doesnt help with people's misconceptions.

Even after I carefully explain that the internet uses under sea cables and
generally either buried wires or above ground stuff I get dubious looks they
say "yeah, right. You're probably just confused..."

~~~
vidro3
>Can't tell you the number of times I've had someone insist that the internet
was on satellites.

It has to go to space!

~~~
vxNsr
Are you referencing the Louis CK thing? I cringe every time I see that.

------
RileyJames
I’ve blown a few minds explaining that the Internet is delivered via light,
sent through very long fiber optic cables under the sea.

I thought this was common knowledge until the first time I explained it, and
the disbelief... Everyone had a revelation that day.

I always knew about fiber optics, growing up with dial up and dreaming of one
day having a fiber connection. But I guess now that everyone is focused on
mobile that piece of infrastructure is abstracted from even reasonably tech
savvy people.

~~~
joering2
I recently visited friend at his lab. I cannot say much but they work on
patent for something he calls “pantone fiber”. Basically within one cable they
are able to squeeze about 16,000 different shades of R/G/B “working” next to
each other. When I grasp the idea it blew my mind - he looked at me and smiled
saying - “yeah about 10,000 times faster than current fiber”. He said two
things tho - one state of tech is not ready for such speeds and latency -
unlesn you have 16K def TV. Second he said they wont release it until much
more cable has been layed out. So that of course they can restart relaying new
cable again and make more $ ;)

~~~
akg_67
Did your friend say 10,000 times faster or 10,000 times bandwidth? By using
different color simultaneously , you can stuff more data but I can’t imagine
it becoming faster than speed of light it already travels at.

~~~
eastdakota
For a bit, yes. For N bits, more bandwidth means more effective speed.

~~~
swombat
Well, no, not unless you define speed as “bandwidth”.

If it takes 1ms for the 1 bit to get to the other side, it’s still going to
take 1ms for N bits to get to the other side, even N-multiplexed.

It’s the bandwidth that’s improved with multiplexing.

~~~
stingraycharles
While you're technically correct, isn't it pretty much an accepted fact that
when people refer to the "speed" of internet, they are actually talking about
bandwidth?

E.g. "how fast is your internet", etc.

It's of little value to the end user to know how fast a bit travels, all they
care about is how fast they can download.

~~~
00deadbeef
I'm sure he knows that and is just being pedantic for the sake of it

~~~
swombat
On HN? Never!

------
lovich
>Inside the ship, workers spool the cable into cavernous tanks. One person
walks the cable swiftly in a circle, as if laying out a massive garden hose,
while others lie down to hold it in place to ensure it doesn’t snag or knot.
Even with teams working around the clock, it takes about four weeks before the
ship is loaded up with enough cable to hit the open sea.

How is that not automated? I cant believe that companies would rely on humans
doing a boring and repetitive task without error for weeks on end when a
single error could cause double digit percentage of time at port. Is this is
just such an uncommon task that automating this wasnt worth the time saved at
port?

edit: Even in the picture in the article you can see a single worker has
removed their shoe covers that all the other employees are wearing[1]. Doesnt
that degrade the cable right there?

[1][https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2019/02/15/undersea-
ca...](https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2019/02/15/undersea-
cables/assets/images/lying-down-2000.jpg)

~~~
lb1lf
I work for a company which make the full deployment line for submarine cable
laying ships _; first time I visited one -Incidentally, a sister ship of the
CS Durable referenced in this article- I wondered about the precise same thing
you did, beginning to sketch solutions in my mind while looking down into the
tanks.

A supervisor comes over to me and says something like "I can see what you are
thinking. There's no use - it is cheaper this way."

The point was that while the ship was in port taking on cable, it was fully
manned anyway. Crews need something to do - so might as well stow cable.

That's our kit in the topside photos. Small world!

_) We do all sorts of other things as well - relying on cable laying alone
would be too much of a niche market!

~~~
michaelt

      The point was that while the ship was in port taking on
      cable, it was fully manned anyway. Crews need something 
      to do - so might as well stow cable.
    

Right, but if they could take on cable faster couldn't they get under way
faster? Four weeks to load a ship sounds like a long time.

~~~
lb1lf
I guess that depends on how fast you can make the cable; I have no idea how
that pans out - but the cable is put onto the vessel straight from the
production line (which, I guess, may have had its speed optimised to the speed
at which crews can reliably put down cable.)

I am now curious; I'll fire off an email with a few questions to my liaison at
TE SubCom. With any luck, answers arrive in time to be relevant to this
thread.

------
lprd
This is so neat! Few questions though, if anyone can answer:

1) The cable still looks pretty thin, is it being housed in some sort of
protective layer/tube before it is laid? Seems like an anchor snag could
easily break that line. If that happens, is it possible to 'patch' a fiber
cable?

2) Once it nears the coast, how deep is the line being buried?

3) This may be a dumb question (I'm no engineer), but does the light travel
from the source all the way to end without any "relay" mechanism?

4) How much bandwidth can travel through one of these lines?

~~~
lota-putty
5) Does anyone know how to save that(cabling-world) animated image alone? All
I can make out is 'g-map' div ;-)

~~~
factsaresacred
Here you go:
[https://giant.gfycat.com/UnderstatedLinedBird.gif](https://giant.gfycat.com/UnderstatedLinedBird.gif)

------
wyred
I don't think it's right to say data is in the ocean though. They are stored
in datacenters on land. And they travel through the ocean. Unless when we
start putting more of these datacenters in the ocean like how some company has
been experimenting with.

------
puzzledobserver
Aside: Is it just me, or do others find animated charts annoying? It takes me
time to understand what's being shown, and before the realization has sunk in,
the graphic restarts causing the whole mental process to restart. Rather like
a strobe light.

~~~
FabHK
Agreed. I'd love to examine the map as of today, or 2021, say, in some detail
and whoops - it's gone. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, there - aaaand
gone. No controls to stop it or skip to a specific year. Very annoying.

------
est31
Related map of submarine cables on the globe (with clickable links for the
cables):
[https://www.submarinecablemap.com](https://www.submarinecablemap.com)

------
godelmachine
Would anyone kindly name a major company that install these mammoth cables
underneath oceans?

Surely they should be huge in valuation yet hidden away from the public glare.

~~~
karambahh
Orange is a big player on this market, probably thanks to the fact that (as
another user mentioned) Alcatel is one of the largest manufacturer (both
historical french companies).

You can follow Jean-Luc Vuillemin [0] on Twitter for very interesting pictures
of ships laying cables around the world.

One of the largest undersea cables plant is Alcatel in Calais, France (Dover
straits). The factory is linked to the port by huge tunnels under the city.
Unfortunately the Wikipedia page is only available in french but contains nice
pictures[1]

[0] [https://twitter.com/jlvuillemin](https://twitter.com/jlvuillemin)
[1][https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel_Submarine_Networks](https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel_Submarine_Networks)

~~~
godelmachine
Checked out the Twitter feed.

Really great!

------
factsaresacred
> The ship will carry enough supplies to last at least 60 days: roughly 200
> loaves of bread...

Unless Jesus is one of the crew members, that isn't nearly enough.

~~~
michaelt
Perhaps they don't freeze it, so having more than ~10 days of bread would mean
throwing out mouldy bread?

------
anonu
When I went to Fiji a few years back I was astounded by the quality of the
internet considering we were in a remote part of the South Pacific. Turns out
Fiji is a "layover" for all the underground cables coming from the US West
coast to Australia...

------
brianzelip
Nice visualization at the intro on desktop+. I wonder if Rich Harris and his
team were behind it? See recent changelog podcast featuring Rich Harris on
being 'a javascript journalist'[0]. Harris is author of the 'magical
disappearing UI framework', svelte[1].

[0][http://changelog.com/podcast/332](http://changelog.com/podcast/332) [1]
[https://svelte.technology/](https://svelte.technology/)

------
Oren-T
Old but good article by Neal Stephenson

[https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass)

------
OliverJones
Interesting stuff. Just as important to education as "how to make a car" was
50 years ago.

Things not covered in this article: Expected carrying capacity? How much dark
fiber (initially unused capacity)? How much extra cable is required to make
sure it stays on the bottom even when going over oceanic mountain ranges? How
much of the ocean-floor survey data is open, how much is proprietary, and how
much is (military-style) secret?

Is there any sabotage? Do nav charts warn about these things?

~~~
pault
I don't have any links handy, but I have definitely read reports of sabotage
_and_ wiretapping.

Edit: ah, from another comment down-thread:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells)

------
justaj
> Last year, Australia stepped in to block the Chinese technology giant Huawei
> from building a cable connecting Australia to the Solomon Islands, for fear
> it would give the Chinese government an entry point into its networks.

I don't really understand this move. Surely the way that the Internet is
designed, you can connect any network to any network. Why would this be any
different with a physical cable in terms of security?

~~~
ativzzz
I don't think most politicians understand how the internet works

------
pcardoso
Related: Arthur C Clarke has a very interesting non-fiction book about the
early days of submarine cables. "Voice across the sea".

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
How the Governments Physically Look at the Internet that Travels Across
Oceans. [1]

[1] [https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-spy-
submarine...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-spy-submarines-
are-tampering-undersea-cables-make-internet-work-should-we-be)

~~~
blancheneige
kinda funny that the headline reads "Russian Spy Submarines Are Tampering with
Undersea Cables" while the article does not provide actual evidence that
Russian Spy Submarines Are Tampering with Undersea Cables. maybe they were
just trying to sow discord into the cables.

------
vs4vijay
Might wanna read this as well: [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/05/how-t...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2016/05/how-the-internet-works-submarine-cables-data-centres-last-
mile/)

------
gtr32x
Interestingly I was just thinking about this the other day, and hoping that
someone here would have the answer. I'm really curious what is the total
bandwidth per second across different continently globally without accounting
for intra-continent bandwidth?

------
uvu
Someone who wants to learn about the internet. Check out the KhanAcademy one
[https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-
science/inter...](https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-
science/internet-intro#internet-works-intro)

------
godelmachine
I read this somewhere that Russia was tying to snoop on US by attaching these
cables with electronic surveillance equipments.

IIRC military and defect corps have separate cables installed for themselves,
and the Russian’s were trying to read the signals.

Would someone tell more about it or add the Wikipedia page here please?

~~~
omeid2
Huh, it was the other way around:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells)

~~~
godelmachine
Pardon my sieve-like memory.

I should had clarified I am quite dim visaged about it.

------
afterburner
Didn't realize Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple outright own some of
those cables.

~~~
FabHK
Weird, the article always mentions Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and _Amazon_ ,
but then once at the end in a footnote does mention _" Apple,_ Google,
Microsoft or Netflix".

I'm left wondering whether it's Amazon or Apple or both that own some of those
cables.

~~~
afterburner
Whoops I meant Amazon (from the map).

------
cm2187
What I find fascinating is that they also have many repeaters given the
massive distances covered by these cables so they need to provide electricity
through the cables on such long distances.

------
cocochanel
This is exactly the reason why I like DigitalOcean name so much.

------
bibyte
I remember discovering them when I was young and thinking how mundane it is. I
also thought that satellites are a integral part of the internet just like the
TV network.

------
samtp
What happens when they reach the edges of tectonic plates (like in the middle
of the Atlantic)? I'd imagine the heat would melt the cables quite easily.

------
omeid2
The graph showing the shift of undersea cable shares from public internet
backbone to private companies is concerning.

~~~
FabHK
Yes, very much so, in particular in conjunction with attacks on net
neutrality. I hope at least some regulators/politicians stay on top of this.

------
mongol
I always wondered if there are not problems in the spot a new cable is laid to
cross an older cable.

~~~
dmlittle
Unlike data cables which cary information with a voltage, fiber optic cables
carry information through light impulses. An advantage being that light is not
susceptible to electromagnetic interference or radio frequencies. Having
multiple fiber optic cables next to each other doesn't cause any issues.

The electromagnetic interference between cables is the reason why you
shouldn't wire a house with data cables and power cables next to each other.

~~~
martin_a
I think his thoughts are more like "what if you need to do something with the
cable that lays under the other one?" At least that's what I'm wondering
about. ;-)

~~~
mongol
Yes exactly

~~~
dmlittle
I'm not certain but it seems if two wires were crossing and you absolutely
needed to move the one under you could cut the wire and fusion splice[1] the
two ends together afterwards.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_splicing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_splicing)

------
ratsimihah
Can someone just dive and cut cables?

------
raviolo
> Lasers propel data down the threads at nearly the speed of light

This is funny. Why “nearly”?

~~~
dagw
When people colloquially say "speed of light" it understood to mean the speed
of light in a vacuum. Light travels slower the higher the refractive index of
the medium its travelling through. Saying "nearly the speed of light"
indicates that the light is travelling through a medium with a refractive
index very close to 1.

~~~
raviolo
To say that light travels at “nearly the speed of light” in any medium is a
bad choice of words. Also with refraction coefficient of 1.40 - 1.45 in fiber,
the term “nearly” is not appropriate if the intention was to compare with
vacuum.

------
black-tea
The first undersea cable was laid in 1858 and what's funny is the two guys on
either end couldn't agree on voltages and currents etc. and would destroy each
other's equipment. It seems silly until you remember that the only way they
could communicate is via post, which took 7 days, or the very cable they were
working on.

