
Submarine Cable Map - T-zex
http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
======
Stratoscope
Here's a 1901 version of the map:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_East...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png)

And somewhat related, a wonderful book called The Victorian Internet:

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802716040/>

If you ever wondered whether the Internet really is a "series of tubes", here
are the tubes:

[http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/f...](http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/files/articles/tubes.jpg)

That photo is from an interesting article (by my namesake James Geary) about
undersea cables:

[http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-03/who-
protects-i...](http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-03/who-protects-
intrnet)

Enjoy! :-)

~~~
cynwoody
Thanks for posting the 1901 map. I'm amazed at the extent of the network back
then.

Of course, in 1901, each of those lines was measured in (low double-digit)
words per minute. Now the metric is more like feature films per second. And
the word "cable" once again means a communication line, not a message
transferred over one.

~~~
jeza
I do find it impressive that Australia was more or less connected to the rest
of the world by telecommunications in 1872 once the overland telegraph line
was completed. The US was only connected reliably connected to Europe about
six years earlier in 1866. So not a bad effort given the vaster geographic
distances to span between Europe and Australia.

------
gk1
For anyone curious as to how they're actually laid, here's a simple diagram of
a typical cable layer ship (CS):

[http://www.murmanchanin.ru/shipnoise/polar_king/polar_king.j...](http://www.murmanchanin.ru/shipnoise/polar_king/polar_king.jpg)

And a simplified diagram of how it operates:

<http://www.fiberinc.net/images/sea.jpg>

~~~
bicknergseng
What's amazing to me is that these cables were laid without a lot of fanfare.
Seems to me if I were Level1 or whoever else and had just completed a 10,000
km cable across an ocean, I'd make sure the press release saw some
circulation.

The same thing with satellite launches. I feel like these are fairly major
feats of engineering that go basically unheard of unless you're in certain
small circles.

~~~
onemoreact
People laid undersea cables for telegraphs and back then it was a big deal.
However, it's been 154 years and people stopped being impressed a while ago.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable>

~~~
saulrh
Modern telecoms cable is some amazing stuff. These days there's no metal in
the entire cable. Instead, it's all lasers through glass fiber, and when the
signal attenuates, it gets boosted by passing through sections of doped fiber
that lase _using power from another beam_ , adding power to the signal. And we
can do this just as easily as the people back then dropped telegraph cable.
For me, at least, there's always something to be impressed by.

~~~
Nrsolis
That's not strictly true.

First, most EDFA (Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers) need power to operate since
the lasers that perform the pumping action are local to the doped sections of
fiber.

Second, most submarine cables make extensive use of Raman amplification which
leverages the transmission fiber as a gain medium via forward or backward
pumping of lasers with frequencies chosen to produce Raman gain.

In both cases, you need an amplifier every 70-100km (150km in some cases) in
order to have a usable signal on a long span.

~~~
saulrh
Huh, didn't know that. I stand corrected. That Raman amplification is nifty.
:D

~~~
Nrsolis
Raman amps are pretty cool but tricky. For one thing, the power required is
pretty high. +1W dBm isn't uncommon for certain Raman amps. At those power
levels, you need to be careful you dont cause burns to personel when they are
working on the equipment.

The power to run the lasers is usually carried on conductors that are part of
the cable itself. The voltages are somewhere in the several kilovolt range so
laying submarine cable is also kinda like laying a high-volage transmission
line across the ocean.

------
kbrowne
It's getting kind of dated now, but Neal Stephenson's "Mother Earth Mother
Board" is great reading if you're interested in both the history and the
process of laying submarine cable:
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html>

~~~
jonnycowboy
Hacker tourism, in 1996! That's something which I think would be popular now,
"Lonely Planet's Hacker Guide to World Travel"

detailing hackerspaces, interesting infrastructure tours, 1 or 2 day
workshops/courses, low-cost travel and couchsurfing, etc...

~~~
troymc
It's not exactly what you outline, but The Geek Atlas by John Graham-Cumming
lists many places that would fit the description "hacker tourism." It's a
travel guide... but it's published by O'Reilly!

<http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596523213.do>

~~~
jonnycowboy
A good start, thanks for the link!

------
tomgallard
If you find this interesting, I can highly recommend Porthcurno Telegraph
museum in Cornwall (UK). <http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/>

Its where many of the first underseas telegraph cables came ashore, and was a
hub for the British Empire's telegraph network.

It was later dug deep into the rock to protect it during WW2.

A great day out- highly recommended.

------
troymc
Wow, there are two cables running from northern Norway to Longyearbyen, on the
island of Svalbard! According to Wikipedia, "Longyearbyen has approximately
2,060 inhabitants (at the end of 2007..." The total population of Svalbard is
not much more.

Edit/Add: The cable length is 2,714 km.

~~~
russss
The reason for that is there's a an important satellite ground station on
Svalbard - it's in an ideal place to communicate with polar-orbiting
satellites:

<http://www.ksat.no/node/77>

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

~~~
alexqgb
Photographer Christian Hougue produced a really beautiful series on this
ground stations called Arctic Technology. He mentioned that the air is some of
cleanest in the world, which is a real boon to the equipment they're running.

[http://www.soulfood.no/arctic_technology.html#img/arctic_tec...](http://www.soulfood.no/arctic_technology.html#img/arctic_technology/01.jpg)

~~~
omegant
Certainly great pics!, There is only missing some AT-ATs and storm troopers in
some of them...

------
adriand
While reading a bit about these cables I found this unusual fact on Wikipedia:

> Because the [TAT-8] cable was the first fiber optic cable and not coaxial
> cable, the electrical interference shielding for the high voltage supply
> lines was removed. This removal did not affect the fiber, but it did cause
> feeding frenzies in sharks that swam nearby. The sharks would then attack
> the cable until the voltage lines killed them. This caused numerous,
> prolonged outages. Eventually, a shark shielding was developed for the
> cable.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAT-8>

~~~
bane
Interesting factoid, Sharks have a fairly unique sense that most animals
don't, they can sense fairly faint electrical fields that living creatures
produce (electroreception) that they use for "targeting" their amazing jaws,
finding prey hidden in seafloor sand, and possibly even navigating in Earth's
magnetic field.

This is especially important when they are about to attack some prey. Due to
the structure of their jaws that actually unhinge and push forward during an
attack, they lose sight of their prey and use this sense to hone in their
bite.

I remember watching video from an experiment where Sharks were fed live fish
and raw meat, and the sharks kept missing the meat but almost never missed a
live fish.

Here's a video of one confused by an artificial electrical field.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aYPHeK1Tyo>

------
muriithi
I cannot help but salivate at the dense links connecting US/Europe and
US/Asia.

Here in Kenya we only have 3 cables. Since last week the internet has been
very slow after the main cable was severed by a ship anchor. The second cable
seemed to have problems upstream so all the traffic has been routed to the
third cable.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/28/east-africa-
inte...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/28/east-africa-internet-
access-anchor)

~~~
PaulAnunda
fellow Kenyan here! (in the US though)

------
falcolas
I found it absolutely fascinating how some continents use underwater cables to
connect different locations within a continent (Africa, notably, seems
virtually surrounded), while others seem to only have significant outbound
connections (North America, Australia).

I can only guess it has more to do with whether you cross national boundaries
(since even the US has underwater cables bridging the mainland to Alaska) than
land features.

~~~
gwern
I noticed quite a cluster on the South American coastline - Brazil-Argentina
coastline looks like it's got 4 or 5 that go nowhere but that coastline. You'd
think Brazil was stable and prosperous enough that they'd go with landlines.

~~~
alextp
The population is strongly clustered on some big cities in the coast, the
roads aren't super safe, and the terrain around the coastline is not flat, so
it's probably just cheaper to lay them out in the ocean.

------
trimbo
Here's what an endpoint looks like.. one of "America's Best Kept Secrets" in
this Wired Photo gallery:

[http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/01/gallery_...](http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/01/gallery_simon?slide=10)

------
adulau
Another map that is quite complete (more older cables) too:
<http://www.cablemap.info/>

~~~
dpcx
Is there anything like this for landlines?

------
shimonamit
I see no cables actually get routed through the Suez canal, even though many
cables come up the Red Sea. The same is true for the Panama canal. Is it
because they are too shallow? Maybe too concentrated?

~~~
Jtsummers
I think it's due to accessibility and the way the canals work. The Panama
canal itself is actually a series of waterways connected via gates. Allowing
ships to be raised and lowered as they need to change elevation. I doubt
that'd be very suitable conditions for laying cable. Far easier to make
connections to land based routes on either side of the isthmus.

------
verelo
I've always wondered where they are. Can you imagine just how long it took to
wrap a wire around the whole world a few times over?

The thing that shocks me is how recently these were added. I was checking out
the cables in Australia, expecting them to have been added in the 60's or
something....however most are around the year 2000-2010.

~~~
mikeocool
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, almost all the transatlantic cables
seemed to have been laid in the 2000s as well. I ran across this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telecommunication...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telecommunications_cable)

Seems like each cable generally only has a life of 10-20 years.

~~~
kijin
Hmm, then what happens to outdated cables? Do we pull them up, or do we just
turn off a switch at the shore and leave the rest in the ocean? Do the cables
contain any substance that might pollute the seabed as the casing degrades
away?

~~~
derda
Given the high price of copper I would guess that they pull the copper cables
out after service. I am not so sure about fiber cables.

~~~
miahi
Given the cost of such an operation, I don't think you can get some profit
even if they were made of gold.

As time passes, most of the cable is buried deeper and deeper under debris
that falls on the ocean floor. This means that you cannot just pull it up, you
would have to dig to get it out.

~~~
maaku
Most cables don't run on the seabed.

~~~
kijin
Umm, then where do they run? They can't float in the middle of the water.

~~~
maaku
Uh, yeah they do. Often they hang from a buoy, floating in the middle of the
water.

------
samstave
I want to know what optics they are using. On segments that are 7,000 miles
long - are there active optic splice boxes along the length of the cable? Or
are they using lasers that actually push 7K miles?

~~~
bdb
Submarine cable systems often employ repeaters (hardened EDFAs). I remember
one vendor bragging that not one of their units had EVER failed in service.

If you want to see what they look like:
[http://www.nec.com/en/global/prod/nw/submarine/product/ns-
se...](http://www.nec.com/en/global/prod/nw/submarine/product/ns-series.html)

~~~
bdb
Actually, there are much better photos in this PDF:
[http://www.nec.com/en/global/prod/nw/submarine/pdf/submarine...](http://www.nec.com/en/global/prod/nw/submarine/pdf/submarine-
brochure.pdf)

Look at the last page for a photo of one of the amps with people in the frame
for scale.

~~~
samstave
That PDF is great, thanks. Jesus - they are huge. Earlier in the PDF, they
appear small.

Is that a single strand they are amplifying with these? I'd like to find cost
figures for how much it is to run a single fiber trans-oceanically (if thats a
word).

------
maxhaot
Check the landing visually <http://cryptome.org/eyeball/cable/cable-
eyeball.htm>

------
leeoniya
this network is probably the 8th man-made wonder of the world. it makes the
Great Wall of China seem benign by comparison.

~~~
kijin
> seem benign by comparison.

So, this network is _malicious_ by comparison?

~~~
jerf
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/benign> , definition 3b: "having no
significant effect : harmless"

The least common usage of the term, true, but perfectly valid. (Probably going
to be "archaic" in another 50 or 100 years.)

------
jyturley
For anyone interested, here is an excellent quora post on how undersea cables
are laid out on the ocean:

[http://www.quora.com/How-are-major-undersea-cables-laid-
in-t...](http://www.quora.com/How-are-major-undersea-cables-laid-in-the-
ocean/answer/Faisal-Khan-1)

------
mgkimsal
Two random thoughts:

1\. I'm always amazed that anchors can seemingly hit a cable at the bottom of
the ocean floor. Given how hard it usually is for us to find anything on the
ocean floor with any precision, we seem to be able to drop anchors and cut
cables with surprising accuracy.

2\. Do the cables have slack in them to account for continental drift? I don't
know how much we drift, but I'd imagine over time the cables would need some
slack in them to make up for it.

~~~
hobbes
1\. The beach, where my 5-year old paddles in the water, is also the ocean
floor. Can get fairly shallow.

------
RobertKohr
Anyone know how to get the gray/white land/ocean view in google maps. I want
to use it for another project.

~~~
Stratoscope
Use the Styled Maps options in the Maps API:

[http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/st...](http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/styling.html)

See the mapStyles object in the submarine map source code for the settings
they are using.

You can use this interactive page to experiment with map styles:

[http://gmaps-
samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/...](http://gmaps-
samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/wizard/index.html)

------
grahammather
Why are there so many cables to Alaska?

~~~
dpcx
Probably something to do with the HAARP research:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_R...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program)

------
bnewbold
It's unfortunate that TeleGeography, while on the one hand demonstrating
beautifully how closely connected many of us have become, seems at the same
time to collaborate with BlueCoat, a company that helps censor the content
coming down these tubes on a national scale.

This mash-up paid for by... ?

[http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2...](http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/10/11/blue-
coat-systems-sponsors-the-state-of-the-global-internet-webinar/)

------
ilitirit
I remember working on the application that was used for administering the
SAT-3/WASC cable. At the time I was excited because I knew it meant South
Africa would be getting faster internet pretty soon after that. 5 years later
I was still stuck on a 56k modem. ADSL launched about two years before that,
but it was just way too expensive. At the moment I'm paying about $185p/m for
a shaped (20kbps between 7am and 7pm during the week) uncapped 8mbps ADSL
line.

------
bdunbar
Am I the only reader who was disappointed that there is no thick line of
undersea fiber leading to the island of Kinakuta in the Sulu Sea?

------
takameyer
Last night I was curious about physical wire connections across oceans for
communications. So I started researching and learned about the first ocean
line implemented in 1858 for telegraph communication. Seeing this link on the
top of HN today was pretty much exactly what I was trying to conclude my
research with last night. What a strange coincidence.

------
wtvanhest
Mombasa Submarine Cable disrupted by anchor. (sort of unrelated but related).

[http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-
blogs/weird-...](http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-
wide-web/internet-connection-disrupted-east-africa)

------
squeed
I'm surprised at how well connected Australia is. Why is their internet still
so expensive?

~~~
steveh73
There's only 2 connections to the USA at the moment, and SCC charges monopoly
prices. There is another AU<>NZ<>USA connection being built in 2014 and
another AU<>NZ connection built in 2013 (the 2 grey lines). Southern Cross
already dropped their prices 44% in response.

------
giardini
Would not many of these be military targets in case of a war?

What failover capability does the USA have?

~~~
rdl
Before a shooting war, like during te USA USSR cold war, militaries and
intelligence agencies put a lot of effort into tapping one another's undersea
cables. The trick is doing it without being detected, especially on a fiber
cable. Operation Ivy Bells was one of the most documented.

------
kenrikm
That's so awesome, I remember seeing a special on the Discovery Channel years
ago (10+) on how they laid cable for the phone lines I would love to see how
it's done now and how it's connected to backbones etc..

------
jarek
As a Canadian, this map worries me from a sovereignty perspective.

~~~
sbierwagen
Pay for your own cables, then.

~~~
jarek
Oh, absolutely. They wouldn't be very sovereign if we built some and didn't
pay for them.

------
dotBen
Think about how many of these cables are tapped by governments, and the
technology + skill needed to implement that tapping.

------
spoiledtechie
Interesting how you don't see cables going through Cuba or North Korea...

~~~
spoiledtechie
Except Guantanamo of course...

~~~
matthavener
Siboney appears to be a good distance from Guantanamo Bay.

------
abruzzi
wow...Mercator Projection!

~~~
Stratoscope
Well, strictly speaking, it's not the usual Mercator projection, but the
"Google Mercator" or "Spherical Mercator" projection, EPSG 3857 or EPSG
900913.

This is a Mercator-like projection that assumes the Earth is a sphere instead
of an ellipsoid. Many online mapping systems use this projection because it is
a much simpler calculation than than a more correct Mercator projection would
require.

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

<http://docs.openlayers.org/library/spherical_mercator.html>

------
kahawe
I know this is incredibly childish and probably impossible given the
elasticity of the cables laid out BUT I would really like to tug on a
submarine cable or even just a thread that goes from Euroland over to the USA
and have it move and wiggle over there. And then next up: a submarine
miniature tunnel/hose/pipe to send a small little vehicle across. I can't help
it.

~~~
cynwoody
You might enjoy reading about Operation Ivy Bells:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells>

~~~
kahawe
Thank you for the link, that was interesting - though until the very end I was
hoping some tugging on the cable gave it away... :)

