
Equiano, a subsea cable from Portugal to South Africa - sauldcosta
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/introducing-equiano-a-subsea-cable-from-portugal-to-south-africa
======
camillomiller
Submarine cables are a mystery to a lot of people. I had to show my dad a
complete map of the cables once to convince him they exist. He just couldn’t
fathom we’re actually able to run thousands of km of cables at the bottom of
the ocean.

~~~
FearNotDaniel
I heartily recommend Andrew Blum's book _Tubes: Behind the Scenes at the
Internet_ for any non-technical folks interested in the physical
infrastructure that makes all that internet magic happen. It's more in the
travel memoir/popular history genres than actual engineering, but a very
atmospheric layman's introduction.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23047146-tubes](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23047146-tubes)

And of course, if you're ever in SW England, the Museum of Submarine
Telegraphy near Penzance is an awesome geek-out experience.

~~~
mbreese
My favorite Wired article of all time was the 1996 article written by Neal
Stephenson all about undersea cables. I can’t believe I was able to find a
link, but I may still have the physical copy someplace. That was an amazing
example of long form writing and was my introduction to Stephenson.

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

~~~
prepend
I really miss wired.

I got into the Internet with their 93 article by William Gibson where they
sent him to Singapore.

It was a really neat place to have articles by people like Stephenson and
Gibson.

~~~
samstave
Heh do you recall Mondo 2000

It was what wired was inspired by...

Also since we are on the topic: 2600 was a great phreaking resource back in
the day... 2600 may still be going though...

~~~
prepend
I didn’t read Mondo 2000 in real time and I think found it on its last issue.

2600 is still going last I checked, along with monthly meetups in my mall.

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Havoc
This is great. SA feels quite far away from the rest of the Internet (think
200ms) so anything that helps improve connectivity is a possive. Especially
since this might foreshadow a local data center there. Azure has tech there.
Google doesn't. Yet

~~~
rdevsrex
Really? Sometimes when there is a problem with out of SA connectivity the only
non-local websites that work are Google and YouTube. I’ve got 20ms ping times
so Google must have a point of presence in SA.

~~~
bobviolier
I am gonna guess he meant a datacenter for Google Cloud. Google probably has
their own points-of-presence for Google and YouTube.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Yes, it does, check out the network tab here:
[https://cloud.google.com/about/locations/](https://cloud.google.com/about/locations/)

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virtuallynathan
This cable has a design capacity of ~320Tbps with 16 fiber pairs. The
previously announced transatlantic cable, Dunant cable has 12 fiber pairs and
a 250Tbps design capacity. These values could probably increase to around
480Tbps and 360Tbps with more advanced optical transmission equipment.

~~~
linux2647
That kind of bandwidth capacity is almost unfathomable

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runeks
Side question: why is the Middle East not connected to India in the map[1]
over Google’s fiber?

[1] [https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-
publish/images...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-
publish/images/gcp_subsea_cables_XmzTBDO.max-1000x1000.png)

~~~
AareyBaba
[https://submarine-cable-map-2019.telegeography.com/](https://submarine-cable-
map-2019.telegeography.com/) shows it is connected. The number of cables going
through the suez canal is notable.

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twic
> Once complete, Equiano will start in western Europe and run along the West
> Coast of Africa, between Portugal and South Africa, with branching units
> along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African
> countries.

I understand how undersea cables are laid, but how do you make use of a
"branching unit" once it's at the bottom of the sea? Send down a submersible
to plug in the branch? Lift the cable back up, plug in the branch, and lower
it again? Do they lay the cable with patch leads attached to the branching
units, so you just have to dredge those up and plug the rest of the branch in?

~~~
stephenhuey
I’ve seen photos of internet cables lifted onto ships to work on them. This
article explains how one uses a massive robot to find them:

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/subsea-internet-cable-
ship-b...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/subsea-internet-cable-ship-boat)

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peter_retief
I wonder if Google have plans for Cape Town? It is the most tech savvy city on
the continent

~~~
Havoc
They should. Amazon is hoovering up all the local talent currently

~~~
ageofwant
iirc a significant block of Amazon's tech was developed in Cape Town over the
last decade or so.

~~~
selimthegrim
Any examples?

~~~
qixxiq
The original version of EC2 (basically AWS) was built in Cape Town.

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wtdata
Related and a big reason for the existence of this new cable:
[https://www.skatelescope.org/](https://www.skatelescope.org/)

The Square Kilometre Array, on its initial phase, will have close to 200 dish
radio telescopes and 130000 radio antennas working together in South Africa
and Australia. The amount of data produced is predicted at 50% of all internet
traffic (this was calculated 2 years ago, probably it changed a bit). A big
part of that data will be distributed across the globe for science, being the
main link originating in South Africa and ending up in Europe.

This will be the biggest scientific endeavor (by size) of mankind so far.

The Phase 2 of the SKA (for now just an idea), will increase the number of
telescope dishes and antennas by a factor of 10.

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sixhobbits
Would this only be used for services l/sites that run on Google Cloud? Or does
the entire Internet benefit directly

~~~
codeisawesome
It's funded by Google completely according to TFA, and it's filed under
"Infrastructure - Google Cloud Platform" \- I'd hazard a guess that it's
probably just for Google Cloud.

They might extend it for AMP sites, maybe..

~~~
goodcanadian
I highly doubt that they would refuse to sell bandwidth if there is a market
for it. It is a very valuable market.

~~~
arccy
Of course they sell it, though Google Cloud

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codeisawesome
I wonder if this signals that Space/Balloon/Satellite Internet is too far
away? Or maybe it's just worth doing this anyway because there's no risk of
Kessler Syndrome under the sea.

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jojofrears
Great to read this. I’ve Experienced problems when the WACs cable goes down so
anything to improve comms is good by me. How much better is optical switching
btw?

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nsomaru
Does it do EU in < 40ms?

~~~
Havoc
No. Speed of light caps it to around 100ms theoretical if memory serves. With
practical below 160 being unlikely

~~~
est31
Surface distance Cape Town <-> London is 9673 km which corresponds to 33 ms
rounded up at light speed (one way).

Surface distance Seattle <-> Berlin is 8143 km which corresponds to 28 ms
rounded up at light speed (one way).

Now, these are distances when travelling across earth's curved surface.
Neutrino canons or (quite impossible to ever build them) cables in earth's
upper mantle would achieve even faster communication. Also, they correspond to
direct connections and don't involve putting the cable into international
waters far away from any government trying to get some extra bucks from you.
The aerospace industry has to jump through a lot of hoops in order to be able
to travel through airspace of a particular country.

~~~
Havoc
>London is 9673 km

Closer to 15k via ocean hence the 100ms theoretical. The other 60ms is gear
overhead.

But yeah if you could lay the cable as a crow flies then closer to 66

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lgleason
Anybody remember Google Fiber? Makes you wonder if this may be hit with
similar issues. IE: it takes longer than they anticipated, it costs more than
anticipated etc..

~~~
est31
Last mile internet and backbone internet services are two different businesses
operating by two different rules.

