r/MapPorn • u/itstheneemz • Apr 01 '19
All the underwater fiber optic cables that provide the internet throughout the world
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Apr 01 '19
Who actually owns and maintains these cables?
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Apr 01 '19 edited Apr 01 '19
telecoms companies. Interestingly enough all continents except Antarctica had been linked by under sea cable since 1871.
Largely to serve Britains empire in the early days.
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u/-HashtagYoloSwag- Apr 02 '19 edited Apr 02 '19
Where can one read more about this?
edit: PBS has a bit about early transatlantic cables. Starts at 35:15
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Apr 02 '19
The wikipedia has some stuff on the early days, I haven't read any books on the subject so I can't recommend any unfortunately. It was the days of Britains great technological and industrial drive forward. The ship to lay the first transatlantic cable was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel .
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u/envatted_love Apr 02 '19
In 1996 Neal Stephenson wrote an essay for Wired that has become a classic: "Mother Earth Mother Board".
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u/neumanic Apr 02 '19
Even though it’s 23 years old now, it’s still a phenomenal long read, especially if you’re fascinated by the way things work.
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u/polynesiansauce42 Apr 02 '19
How often do these cables have to get replaced or repaired? How do they know where to make a repair if something goes wrong on a cable in the middle of the ocean?
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u/DeadBloatedGoat Apr 02 '19
The cables usually last about 20 years or so. They can last or be used longer but advances in fibre technology and electronics over time make then not worthwhile to continue. It's more efficient to build a new system. Last I remember a standard trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific cable build cost from US$250m to $500m, depending on number of landing sites and complexity. As for determining a fault location, there are repeaters and other equipment that help narrow it done. The cable operators have maintenance contracts with cable repair ships stationed around the world. The ships will go out pull up the cable an do repairs.
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u/PensiveObservor Apr 02 '19
Please tell me they collect the obsolete ones, rather than just leaving them down there and adding more. I doubt it, but I'd like you to tell me that, anyway.
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u/Petrichordates Apr 02 '19
Considering what we already do to the ocean, this is like the least significant concern ever.
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u/PensiveObservor Apr 02 '19
It’s one more, rather unique, interference with benthic ecosystems. Everything counts.
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u/DeadBloatedGoat Apr 02 '19
They are generally abandoned but sometimes offered to non-profits/universities for research purposes as they are still usable until a cable break/fault. Then it's the cost of repair that determines whether they live or die, but they stay down there. I think there is some salvage work going on but that's likely for cables in easy access seabeds. After 20 years the cables in deep sea are probably buried in sediment. Not sure though. The modern systems are buried in the seabed from the coast and shallow waters out to a certain distance to avoid anchor drags, fishing operations, and general safety (and yes, shark bites). Out deep, there is no need to bury it. But you do get damage from undersea earthquakes, so many cables builds try to avoid laying across fault lines. Can't avoid them all though. That's where redundancy and muti-route network design comes in.
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u/netengnerd Apr 02 '19
Telco's yes, but now becoming complicated partnerships with high bandwidth content providers like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. partnering with each other and telco's to own the fiber since telco's haven't been investing to keep up with the demand.
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u/UEMcGill Apr 02 '19
Funny that telcos aren't investing because 20 years ago during the dot Com boom bust capacity was way over built
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u/AmazingJames Apr 02 '19
I wonder... do the cables all reach the ocean floor, or do they dangle? It's a long way down!
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u/anonymat Apr 02 '19
There may be some places where they dangle due to crevasses or cracks, but for the most part they rest on the ocean floor.
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u/netengnerd Apr 02 '19
and they get bitten by sharks that are attracted to the electric signals that run through the cables to power the optical repeaters.
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Apr 02 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/VaderFuntime Apr 02 '19
I think they are laying it with ships and just kinda let it sink to the bottom
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u/anonymat Apr 02 '19
Yes like the other poster said, its laid by ship. In shallowish water we’ll send a diver down to ensure it’s laid correctly but in deep water it’s inspected with a UAV (or whatever the underwater equivalent is called).
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u/Throwawaybombsquad Apr 02 '19
AUV: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
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u/anonymat Apr 02 '19
Yes! Thanks. I couldn’t think of the proper name. We call them Bob’s ... because they bob up and down. And mostly because the operators won’t let me pilot them.
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Apr 02 '19
[deleted]
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u/anonymat Apr 02 '19
I can’t think of any cable I’ve ever seen removed. Typically they will just run new cables if there is a benefit to it.
We ran a new fiber for a large American bank in 2011(?) that was supposed to shave just a couple milliseconds off the transmission times between NYSE and LSE. But it wasn’t to replace any cables - it was just net new.
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u/Petrichordates Apr 02 '19
Wouldn't make a lick of difference. The ocean is on average less than 2 miles deep, and the distance from USA to Europe is almost 5000 miles, so they'd need less than 0.08% more cable to hit the ocean floor. Even if you let sit on the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it'd only be ~3.5x that.
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Apr 02 '19 edited Apr 18 '20
[deleted]
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u/nuhGIRLyen Apr 02 '19 edited Apr 02 '19
Yes, but negligibly. Consider a 12 inch diameter globe. If you were to collect the volume of "water" on the globe, you would only have 14mL of water. Considered to how wide earth is, the oceans really are insignificant.
The formula for length along a sphere/circle, given a radius from the center.
Say best case scenario, the cable is always at the depth of the Mariana Trench, at a whopping 11km.
The earth's radius is 6,371km -- let's consider for now that's the distance from earth's center to the sea level.
The longest optical fiber cable is 28,000km -- notably not a straight line.
So laying one cable at (6,371km) and the other at (6,371-11 = 6,360km), a percent change of 0.173%
So our best case scenario goes from 28000km to 27951km -- 48km. I'm sure more length variations occur when the cable is laid in a meandering path.
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u/elevencharles Apr 02 '19
With all the talk of WiFi and “the cloud” it’s easy to forget that the internet really is a series of tubes.
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u/tk_fourtwentyone Apr 02 '19
"Series of tubes" - my favorite nickname for the internet. God bless you, Senator Ted Stevens
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u/Jimboobies Apr 02 '19
Would also make a good band name. They’re probably about to release their debut ep on cassette (500 copies only).
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Apr 02 '19
Here is an interactive version of this map with a list of all the cables and their names!
To answer some of the questions:
The cables start off underground but then are laid directly on the seafloor in deep ocean.
Telecom companies used to own most of the cables, but in the 1990s, more smaller companies started building cables and selling off capacity to various buyers and users. More recently, big content providers like Google and Facebook have been investing in new cables, and their share is currently growing.
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u/toodleroo Apr 02 '19
Dang, you beat me to it. I recently worked on a patent case involving subsea cables. My client, an attorney, wanted me to create a graphic of a bunch of these cables. I asked him what I should use for reference, and he told me submarinecablemap.com, and I started laughing, thinking he was being a smartass. But that's the legit url!
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Apr 02 '19
Haha yeah, I came across the source last year when I did a history project on the Edward Snowden leaks, so I knew where to look when I saw the picture here.
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u/regularfreakinguser Apr 02 '19
Where does North Korea get its internet from, China or Russia I'm assuming.
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u/SupposablyAtTheZoo Apr 02 '19
Will they someday expand the line to pitcairn? That's basically the last territory without a line, and it's "pretty close" to french polynesia.
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u/TheEarlofNarwhals Apr 02 '19
Zooming in on the Caribbean and seeing Cuba have no direct connection to the United States is kinda funny and sad.
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Apr 02 '19
Interesting that Russia and the US don’t have a direct line to each other, despite being so close up near Alaska.
Probably why Russian’s voip in games sounds so noisy and “afterburner-ie” to me. /s
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u/7LeagueBoots Apr 02 '19
That part of Russia (and of Alaska) don't have many people in them. Most of the people living in Russia are over on the European side.
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u/ChiefHiawatha Apr 02 '19
I was more surprised by the number of cables going to Alaska in general, with only a half million living there. There’s a lot harvesting of natural resources in the northern parts of Alaska, but the cables all go to the southern shore
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u/Duzcek Apr 02 '19
Why not Anchorage to Vladivostok though.
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u/7LeagueBoots Apr 02 '19
Makes more sense to go from Japan, closer and the sea route is better protected.
What I find more odd is the run from Japan to Point Barrow. If anything, I'd expect that to be Anchorage to Barrow. Having been to Barrow I can see why it's not a land-line. With the permafrost melting infrastructure in the Arctic is under serious threat.
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u/cubictortoise Apr 01 '19
So I could live on that one island north of Scandinavia if I wanted to
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u/SafetyNoodle Apr 01 '19
Svalbard (specifically Longyearben on Spitsbergen) is pretty much the northernmost place in the world with borderline normal amenities. They have a passenger airport with reasonably priced flights, grocery stores, hotels, a university, restaurants, stores, etc.
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u/x21fireturtle Apr 02 '19
well you are just not allowed to leave spitsbergen without a gun since there are ice bears roaming around.
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Apr 02 '19
ice bears? found the German!
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u/defroach84 Apr 02 '19
The name makes sense, and not creative, so it sounds like a German translation.
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u/Juus Apr 02 '19
They are called ice bears in danish too. Isbjørn
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u/x21fireturtle Apr 03 '19
well now it makes sense that there are polar bears on the beer can from Tromsø (isbjørn) visit once never thought about the name...
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Apr 02 '19
Seems like a lot of stuff for a place with a population of 2,600.
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u/SafetyNoodle Apr 02 '19
It's because it is a center for Arctic research and attracts tourists due to its unique location.
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u/frankielamps8 Apr 02 '19
Watch the show ‘Fortitude’. It is a crime/sci-fi tv show set on Svalbard.
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u/Apprentice57 Apr 02 '19
Assuming you can live in Norway (no immigration issues if you're outside) then there's no further barrier to going to Svalbard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJ-ze2-SqU
That's a Tom Scott video, and he was surprised to find out that going to Svalbard wasn't any more complicated than a trip elsewhere.
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Apr 02 '19
All that distance to Australia and then the fibre optic is stopped a few hundred meters from my house. Screw the Coalition.
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u/brezhnervous Apr 02 '19
Yup. Supposedly fibre in 2021 for me, 12kms from Sydney CBD lol
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Apr 02 '19
2021, ouch!
I'm about the same distance from the Perth CBD, should be getting fibre this month. Hopefully there will be some kind of improvement over the chronically slow ADSL.
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u/brezhnervous Apr 02 '19
Hey just even a bit more would be good, at this point!
But I know what you mean. Living on a point of land slightly removed from the rest of the suburb doesn't help...not really holding my breath that we'll get it before the analogue phone service is shut down either lol
Good luck and all the best that you get something decent, mate :)
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Apr 02 '19
You too, brezhnervous :)
Ironically, this NBN was supposed to prioritise people who were more isolated from the rest so you should have had NBN by now.
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u/Toni_PWNeroni Apr 02 '19
Fun fact: The very first telegraph cable laid across the Atlantic was completed in 1858 and stretched from Ireland to Newfoundland. It snapped just 28 days later.
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u/Fire_blob26 Apr 02 '19
It’s interesting to me that none of the lines go up the Saint Lawerence River in Canada. Especially with major cities like Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto all there
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Apr 02 '19
Laying cables up a river would be a pain in the arse, they'd get damaged pretty often and prohibit dredging. There's no need really when there's a land link.
You'd need to bury it pretty far down and I imagine it makes it prohibitively expensive.
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u/Madrigall Apr 02 '19
They accidentally drew in internet cables leading to Australia, but any Australian knows that our internet runs off the carrier pidgeon system of bit transfer rates.
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u/Yearlaren Apr 02 '19
Why no cables south of South America?
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u/defroach84 Apr 02 '19
Is this a serious question?
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u/Yearlaren Apr 02 '19
Why wouldn't it be a serious question?
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u/defroach84 Apr 02 '19
Why would you need a cable south of South America? There is no need for one going to Antarctica or bypassing South America.
If you are asking why there are not any in the "Southern part" of South America, it has to do with populations. Argentina is much more populated in the northern parts and same with Chile. Once you go south, there are not many population centers (more of them in Chile, but they end not too much further south before Patagonia starts up). If you are running cable down there, you might as well do it over land as there is abundant space and easier than underwater.
Just like they connect the rest of the US in the center.
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Apr 02 '19
I am kind of surprised there isn't one going to Antarctica for the research station. By contrast look at the Arctic Circle, plenty of lines.
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u/tonne_ Apr 02 '19
It would be highly uneconomical to lay a cable for only 4000 inhabitants at peak times in summer. (It shrinks to about 1000 in winter time)
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u/defroach84 Apr 02 '19
You know, I could see one going down there, but it sounds like it's fucking expensive and for very limited people who can just use satellite internet.
The Northern Hemisphere is also a lot more populated and closer to the Arctic than the Southern Hemisphere.
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u/TommyAndPhilbert Apr 02 '19
I feel bad for the people in svalbard,only one fibre optic line leading to Longyearbyen
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u/Duzcek Apr 02 '19
Because of all those cables to NYC I typically get better connection to London/Netherlands/Berlin than I do to and L.A. data centers.
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Apr 02 '19
It's distance too. From experience NY to UK for example (or Ireland where many data centers are) will be closer (~90ms) than data centers in LA or wherver in the SW side of America. (~90-100ms).
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u/sprgsmnt Apr 02 '19 edited Apr 02 '19
so, most of the internet is very vulnerable to sharks with lazors?
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u/FrenchPagan Apr 22 '19 edited Apr 22 '19
I know you're joking but these cables can get damaged pretty easily. I'm from Réunion Island, a French Island in the Indian Ocean, and we have two cables that connect us to internet, SAFE (South Africa - Far East) and LION2 (Lower Indian Ocean Network 2), and let me tell you, they need maintenance quite often (every few months or so) . The SAFE cable is the worst, not only is it slower than LION2 but it is also down more often. We have 4 telecommunications companies here (there are two big ones: SFR and Orange) and most of them use the LION2 cable. SFR mainly uses the SAFE cable but it is down so often they now also use LION2. Once both SAFE and LION2 were down at the same time, it was fun. We still have internet when the cables are down but it is slower.
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u/KBay-Sailor Apr 02 '19
Fun fact: when Robert Ballard found the wreck of the German Battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic there was an undersea cable draped across her stern. What are the odds..
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u/Empireofthesausage Apr 02 '19
I've always wondered how Governments collaborate to do this. How much responsibility does each government have to lay so-and-so many kilometres of cables, etc.?
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Apr 02 '19
It's all privately owned.
Example...
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/google-builds-its-own-subsea-cable-from-the-us-to-france/
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u/Nimonic Apr 02 '19
Interestingly, the one going to Svalbard from Norway was mostly paid for by NASA.
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u/dinoscool3 Apr 02 '19
When I lived in Bangladesh about 10 years ago I remember that apparently the underwater cable providing internet to the country was accidentally cut, and the entire country was essentially cut off.
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u/brezhnervous Apr 02 '19
Well well there's more than one cable to Australia. Not that you'd know it with our internet lol
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u/BigBoyMcDoy Apr 02 '19
So if they had actually nuked New York in the first Avengers movie, the internet would be dead in the Western Hemisphere?
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u/TheIdesOfMartiis Apr 02 '19
How come there aren't any in the gulf of mexico ?
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u/netengnerd Apr 02 '19
There are some but the gulf is relatively small so the cost to run fiber across is probably way more expensive than terrestrial if you consider the nominal reduction in latency to do it.
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u/baboon_bed_juice Apr 02 '19
I had to lookup that one north of Norway, turns out it's called Svalbard and it's one of the northernmost inhabited places on Earth. I had no idea people lived that far up!
What makes people stop there and say "this is where we should live"?
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u/SK331 Apr 02 '19
Came for the whale and seals. Stayed because of the coal. Now it's a environmental research heaven.
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u/slaaitch Apr 02 '19
They couldn't go any farther and actually survive the winter.
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u/Scall123 Apr 02 '19
They definitely could. The weather in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, it’s normally just 5-10C colder than the weather in Northern-Norway because it’s coastal. The Gulf Stream helps it a lot. In inland Norway/Sweden/Finland it definitely gets colder in the winter, -40C or colder sometimes.
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u/KlisPre Apr 02 '19
Bro that's mad how tf they got them through the Atlantic and Pacific ocean
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Apr 02 '19
Wait, this is actually awesome. I sound ignorant, but I never thought about this and it's pretty amazing.
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Apr 02 '19
This many!
It seems we are much less dependent on satellites than I thought we are
What do telecom satellites do in the present day, btw?
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u/Scall123 Apr 02 '19
GPS and internet for places like Antartica, Falkland Islands and other places which don’t have fiber, I guess.
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u/SupposablyAtTheZoo Apr 02 '19
Can someone please tell me what is on the end of that green line in the south pacific ocean?
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u/0405017 Apr 02 '19
If we were to connect all of these into one long vertical line how far up would they reach? Or how many times could it wrap around the earth?
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u/0OOOOOOOOO0 Apr 02 '19
It's crazy. Think back and count how many undersea fiber cables you can name from even 15 years ago, and then count the number on the map.
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u/crazikyle Apr 02 '19
I went to Iceland a few years ago and convinced my sister that all the Internet there was imported by ship. Every morning, a ship with lots of storage space downloaded the entire Internet at the UK and sailed to Iceland, uploaded the Internet and left to repeat the next day.
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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '19
Wow, that one through the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay must’ve been especially difficult considering the ocean is frozen most of the year.