7 ms·

Greg's Cable Map

83 points by ajr0 9y ago

emilyfm 9y ago
Interesting that there are no current transpacific cables at all landing in western Canada. Makes the area very dependent on the neighbour to the south (which is an earthquake risk, as well as a political risk).
- owenversteeg 9y ago
  Ehh, I imagine if things get too bad they can always lay a new one. In the meantime Western Canada could probably be connected to Eastern Canada somehow. Given that people were laying tons of cables 120 years ago, it can't be _that_ difficult for a country as big as Canada in crisis.
  - Aloha 9y ago
    Canada is well connected internally with Fiber
    - lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y ago
      Not between eastern and western part imo.
- mcpherrinm 9y ago
  There are overland fiber runs. One map is: http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ Those will connect with arctic and atlantic undersea cables, so Canada wouldn't be completely cut off.
- PhantomGremlin 9y ago
  which is an earthquake risk, as well as a political risk Oh, come on. Maybe an earthquake risk. But, really, "political risk"? The longest undefended border in the world?
daenney 9y ago
This seems very similar to https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/.
- Rebelgecko 9y ago
  For the cables I'm aware of, the one you linked seems a little more accurate. On Greg's, there's a pin on the map but it just says "0 cables land here"
- marzell 9y ago
  I found this to be a fun reference when reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Elv13 9y ago
The same map in 1901 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eas... Actually, not much changed. There's probably less active cables now.
- daenney 9y ago
  There's a lot more in the Pacific nowadays than on that map. And I don't think less cables are active. Our need for bandwdith nowadays compared to 1900 is much higher, a lot of those cables have simply been upgraded from carrying telegraph signals to snappy fibre optics.
- chrishacken 9y ago
  I'm surprised at how many cables crossed the Atlantic in 1901. Anyone know how they power the amplifiers under the ocean? (Then and now?). Edit: It appears that there's a separate wire carrying electricity. I'm no electrician but I was under the impression that power loses it's Voltage (or Amperage?) over distance.
  - teraflop 9y ago
    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#Bandwidth_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable... for a brief overview. Early submarine cables were literally just wires. To overcome the electrical resistance of a long cable, they simply applied a large voltage on one end, and used sensitive instruments to pick up the tiny signal on the other end. Interestingly, the early engineers didn't fully understand how the electromagnetic properties of a cable (capacitance and inductance) affect signal propagation over long distances. So they ended up seeing unexpected amounts of distortion that forced them to transmit much more slowly than desired. The theoretical breakthrough that enabled reliably sending signals from one side of an ocean to another was thanks to Oliver Heaviside, who was pretty much the archetype of a misunderstood crackpot/genius. But yeah, later cables included in-line repeaters, once the technology was sufficiently well developed. Here's a description of some early vacuum-tube amplifiers that were designed for extreme reliability: http://www.ase-museoedelpro.org/Museo_Edelpro/Catalogo/tubes/records_nw/175HQ/175HQ_rec.pdf http://www.ase-museoedelpro.org/Museo_Edelpro/Catalogo/tubes...
freedomben 9y ago
The site looks down. Probably because womble.ddns.info is down: dig result: ;; ANSWER SECTION: cablemap.info. 578 IN CNAME womble.ddns.info. womble.ddns.info. 29 IN A 41.180.82.42
- jaytaylor 9y ago
  Archive.org link from 2017-08-30: https://web.archive.org/web/20170830051926/http://cablemap.info/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170830051926/http://cablemap.i...
- ElijahLynn 9y ago
  Also Google Cache http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKorikQCsJ:www.cablemap.info/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKori...
mcpherrinm 9y ago
If anyone is interested in making a fancier version of this, it would be very cool to add infrastructure on land, too. EG, Level 3 has a map at http://news.level3.com/network-map http://news.level3.com/network-map, or Allstream's at http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ I've always thought it would be cool to use large area traceroutes and BGP dumps to automatically infer some topology data too, automatically creating such a map.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Trouble with trying to map traceroutes is so many long distance runs are in mpls that you can get 1 hop from Europe to Japan!
ElijahLynn 9y ago
Google Cache for those in the "connecting" state. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKorikQCsJ:www.cablemap.info/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKori...
kilroy123 9y ago
I was in Hawaii this weekend and explaining this to my girlfriend who is not at all a "techy". I explained to her, how odd it is, that the internet works here because there's literally a giant cord from the island back to California laying on the ground in the ocean. Seems rather primitive when you stop and think about it.
- sizzzzlerz 9y ago
  what are the options? Satellite transmission certainly is one but it is bandwidth limited and it imposes delays due to the distance involved. Microwave radio won't work because it's line-of-sight. HF or VHF radio has atmospheric effects and noise issues and is even more bandwidth constrained. So, really, cable is the best option giving the lowest price per bit. Fiber, these days, is approaching 100 Gbps with the ability to multiplex multiple bit streams onto different wavelengths to allow transmission of insane amounts of data. Hardly primitive when you do think about it.
  - kilroy123 9y ago
    There hasn't been any other option. However, I think we could launch a low orbit satellite constellation, now. It will be exciting to see how well it will actually work.
    - jgalt212 9y ago
      You mean like Iridium? > Satellites are in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately 485 mi (781 km) and inclination of 86.4° https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...
    - planteen 9y ago
      You can get Irudium or Globalstar today in 9600 bps of glory with rain and cloud fade issues.
      - lb1lf 9y ago
lb1lf 9y ago
No mention of submarine cables is complete without reference to Neal Stephenson's excellent feature for Wired [0] - 'Mother Earth, Mother Board' in which he tags along as an intercontinental cable is laid down. Also, Discovery Networks did an episode of its 'Mighty Ships' series on a Tyco Reliance class cable ship - quite interesting if you can find it, although a bit short on nerdy detail, as one would expect.) [0] https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/
bleair 9y ago
Looking at the map I suspect it's still the case a good many of the these cables end up trunking into the same building / using the same power and can be described as very much being in a "shared risk group". You think you're buying a backup link resilience and you're paying lots of money to a different carrier, but one proverbial backhoe or one block looses power and oops you end up with a network partition.

83 points by ajr0 9y ago

Interesting that there are no current transpacific cables at all landing in western Canada. Makes the area very dependent on the neighbour to the south (which is an earthquake risk, as well as a political risk).

owenversteeg 9y ago
Ehh, I imagine if things get too bad they can always lay a new one. In the meantime Western Canada could probably be connected to Eastern Canada somehow. Given that people were laying tons of cables 120 years ago, it can't be _that_ difficult for a country as big as Canada in crisis.
- Aloha 9y ago
  Canada is well connected internally with Fiber
  - lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y ago
    Not between eastern and western part imo.
mcpherrinm 9y ago
There are overland fiber runs. One map is: http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ Those will connect with arctic and atlantic undersea cables, so Canada wouldn't be completely cut off.
PhantomGremlin 9y ago
which is an earthquake risk, as well as a political risk Oh, come on. Maybe an earthquake risk. But, really, "political risk"? The longest undefended border in the world?

daenney 9y ago

This seems very similar to https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/.

Rebelgecko 9y ago
For the cables I'm aware of, the one you linked seems a little more accurate. On Greg's, there's a pin on the map but it just says "0 cables land here"
marzell 9y ago
I found this to be a fun reference when reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Elv13 9y ago

The same map in 1901 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eas... Actually, not much changed. There's probably less active cables now.

daenney 9y ago
There's a lot more in the Pacific nowadays than on that map. And I don't think less cables are active. Our need for bandwdith nowadays compared to 1900 is much higher, a lot of those cables have simply been upgraded from carrying telegraph signals to snappy fibre optics.
chrishacken 9y ago
I'm surprised at how many cables crossed the Atlantic in 1901. Anyone know how they power the amplifiers under the ocean? (Then and now?). Edit: It appears that there's a separate wire carrying electricity. I'm no electrician but I was under the impression that power loses it's Voltage (or Amperage?) over distance.
- teraflop 9y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#Bandwidth_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable... for a brief overview. Early submarine cables were literally just wires. To overcome the electrical resistance of a long cable, they simply applied a large voltage on one end, and used sensitive instruments to pick up the tiny signal on the other end. Interestingly, the early engineers didn't fully understand how the electromagnetic properties of a cable (capacitance and inductance) affect signal propagation over long distances. So they ended up seeing unexpected amounts of distortion that forced them to transmit much more slowly than desired. The theoretical breakthrough that enabled reliably sending signals from one side of an ocean to another was thanks to Oliver Heaviside, who was pretty much the archetype of a misunderstood crackpot/genius. But yeah, later cables included in-line repeaters, once the technology was sufficiently well developed. Here's a description of some early vacuum-tube amplifiers that were designed for extreme reliability: http://www.ase-museoedelpro.org/Museo_Edelpro/Catalogo/tubes/records_nw/175HQ/175HQ_rec.pdf http://www.ase-museoedelpro.org/Museo_Edelpro/Catalogo/tubes...

freedomben 9y ago

The site looks down. Probably because womble.ddns.info is down: dig result: ;; ANSWER SECTION: cablemap.info. 578 IN CNAME womble.ddns.info. womble.ddns.info. 29 IN A 41.180.82.42

jaytaylor 9y ago
Archive.org link from 2017-08-30: https://web.archive.org/web/20170830051926/http://cablemap.info/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170830051926/http://cablemap.i...
ElijahLynn 9y ago
Also Google Cache http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKorikQCsJ:www.cablemap.info/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKori...

mcpherrinm 9y ago

If anyone is interested in making a fancier version of this, it would be very cool to add infrastructure on land, too. EG, Level 3 has a map at http://news.level3.com/network-map http://news.level3.com/network-map, or Allstream's at http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ http://www.allstream.com/about-us/ipnetwork/ I've always thought it would be cool to use large area traceroutes and BGP dumps to automatically infer some topology data too, automatically creating such a map.

isostatic 9y ago
Trouble with trying to map traceroutes is so many long distance runs are in mpls that you can get 1 hop from Europe to Japan!

ElijahLynn 9y ago

Google Cache for those in the "connecting" state. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKorikQCsJ:www.cablemap.info/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_BoKori...

kilroy123 9y ago

I was in Hawaii this weekend and explaining this to my girlfriend who is not at all a "techy". I explained to her, how odd it is, that the internet works here because there's literally a giant cord from the island back to California laying on the ground in the ocean. Seems rather primitive when you stop and think about it.

sizzzzlerz 9y ago
what are the options? Satellite transmission certainly is one but it is bandwidth limited and it imposes delays due to the distance involved. Microwave radio won't work because it's line-of-sight. HF or VHF radio has atmospheric effects and noise issues and is even more bandwidth constrained. So, really, cable is the best option giving the lowest price per bit. Fiber, these days, is approaching 100 Gbps with the ability to multiplex multiple bit streams onto different wavelengths to allow transmission of insane amounts of data. Hardly primitive when you do think about it.
- kilroy123 9y ago
  There hasn't been any other option. However, I think we could launch a low orbit satellite constellation, now. It will be exciting to see how well it will actually work.
  - jgalt212 9y ago
    You mean like Iridium? > Satellites are in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately 485 mi (781 km) and inclination of 86.4° https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...
  - planteen 9y ago
    You can get Irudium or Globalstar today in 9600 bps of glory with rain and cloud fade issues.
    - lb1lf 9y ago

lb1lf 9y ago

No mention of submarine cables is complete without reference to Neal Stephenson's excellent feature for Wired [0] - 'Mother Earth, Mother Board' in which he tags along as an intercontinental cable is laid down. Also, Discovery Networks did an episode of its 'Mighty Ships' series on a Tyco Reliance class cable ship - quite interesting if you can find it, although a bit short on nerdy detail, as one would expect.) [0] https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

bleair 9y ago

Looking at the map I suspect it's still the case a good many of the these cables end up trunking into the same building / using the same power and can be described as very much being in a "shared risk group". You think you're buying a backup link resilience and you're paying lots of money to a different carrier, but one proverbial backhoe or one block looses power and oops you end up with a network partition.