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> The answer was usually "illegal fishing", or "sharks". You make it sound like every other day some UNDERSEA CABLE gets cut - that's not a once-in-a-blue-moon

> The answer was usually "illegal fishing", or "sharks". You make it sound like every other day some UNDERSEA CABLE gets cut - that's not a once-in-a-blue-moon thing?

midasuni 4y ago
I haven’t found a good source of news on submarine cable cuts/fixes, but anecdotally it’s not that often - maybe once a year on cables through suez. Atlantic you never notice. Even rarer is something like the recent Shetland outage where virg cables were lost.
- triggercut 4y ago
  In this case it was about once a year and it was the only cable directly connecting the two locations. There was one occasion where there was a break only months after one was finally repaired, really frustrating. There are more cables taking that route now, so a bit of redundancy. Most of the time I'd find out officially via network operators bulletin boards (i.e. those looking after AS and IXs) there wouldn't be anything reported in the local news because, for most people, as this article alludes to, the content edge servers they actually connect to are pretty close, both physically (distance) and virtually (hops).
- harywilke 4y ago
  https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequently-asked-questions https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequent... "Don't these cables ever break? Yes! Cable faults are common. On average, there are over 100 each year. You rarely hear about these cable faults because most companies that use cables follow a “safety in numbers” approach to usage, spreading their networks' capacity over multiple cables so that if one breaks, their network will run smoothly over other cables while service is restored on the damaged one. Accidents like fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors account for two-thirds of all cable faults. Environmental factors like earthquakes also contribute to damage. Less commonly, underwater components can fail. Deliberate sabotage and shark bites are exceedingly rare. "
  - midasuni 4y ago
    Sure but there’s 200 cables so that’s one break every 2 years on average.
jeroenhd 4y ago
Worldwide, there's a cable break about once every three days. How much that affects you depends on the backup infrastructure and your current location. Submarine cables getting damaged is all but uncommon. I'd expect cables through the Atlantic or Pacific ocean to get damaged much more rarely than cables through your local lake. Shallow waters and sports/amateur boating can damage the cables in shallower waters more easily than in the humongous depths of the greater oceans in the world.

> The answer was usually "illegal fishing", or "sharks". You make it sound like every other day some UNDERSEA CABLE gets cut - that's not a once-in-a-blue-moon thing?

midasuni 4y ago

I haven’t found a good source of news on submarine cable cuts/fixes, but anecdotally it’s not that often - maybe once a year on cables through suez. Atlantic you never notice. Even rarer is something like the recent Shetland outage where virg cables were lost.

triggercut 4y ago
In this case it was about once a year and it was the only cable directly connecting the two locations. There was one occasion where there was a break only months after one was finally repaired, really frustrating. There are more cables taking that route now, so a bit of redundancy. Most of the time I'd find out officially via network operators bulletin boards (i.e. those looking after AS and IXs) there wouldn't be anything reported in the local news because, for most people, as this article alludes to, the content edge servers they actually connect to are pretty close, both physically (distance) and virtually (hops).
harywilke 4y ago
https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequently-asked-questions https://www2.telegeography.com/submarine-cable-faqs-frequent... "Don't these cables ever break? Yes! Cable faults are common. On average, there are over 100 each year. You rarely hear about these cable faults because most companies that use cables follow a “safety in numbers” approach to usage, spreading their networks' capacity over multiple cables so that if one breaks, their network will run smoothly over other cables while service is restored on the damaged one. Accidents like fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors account for two-thirds of all cable faults. Environmental factors like earthquakes also contribute to damage. Less commonly, underwater components can fail. Deliberate sabotage and shark bites are exceedingly rare. "
- midasuni 4y ago
  Sure but there’s 200 cables so that’s one break every 2 years on average.

jeroenhd 4y ago

Worldwide, there's a cable break about once every three days. How much that affects you depends on the backup infrastructure and your current location. Submarine cables getting damaged is all but uncommon. I'd expect cables through the Atlantic or Pacific ocean to get damaged much more rarely than cables through your local lake. Shallow waters and sports/amateur boating can damage the cables in shallower waters more easily than in the humongous depths of the greater oceans in the world.