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The Cables That Run the Internet
- hulitu 3y ago> You probably know that tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Google run the brains of the internet. They shall go to a doctor. The brains are a bit damaged. /s
- jeffrallen 3y agoHow things have changed since FLAG (https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass) which instead of being owned by hyperscalers for their never ending desire to monopolize all the things, was owned by telcos looking to open new markets in Africa.
- adr1an 3y agohttps://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
- grokas 3y agoThe tiny cable loop in the Gulf of Mexico between Texas and Louisiana area is just depressing... Why was that the solution? Its really bringing to mind all the issues the US has with infrastructure implementation on dry land. Sigh.
- ianburrell 3y agoIf you click on the segment, can see that it is Tampnet. It looks like they provide fiber and mobile networks to offshore drilling. That is right location for oil fields.
- vxNsr 3y agoWhat’s that ISP service call look like? “Hey, Comcast, I need internet at my new address” “Sure, where is it?” “60mi south of the Louisiana coast line and 45mi east of Mexico” “…hmm, yea we can probably swing that, it’ll be an extra $10k for ftth, otherwise we’re only running copper”
- southerntofu 3y agoLike your fun, but for some extra seriousness, 10k$ is the order of magnitude you pay to setup FTTH in a big city. Most times, consumer ISPs eat the cost and make economies of scale by connecting entire neighborhoods, but if you don't have that chance and for some reasons ISPs won't connect you you can count on 10-50k$ infrastructure bill. Also, consumer ISPs like Comcast are the worst. If you have good relationships in your neighborhood/municipality, going collective like with SCANI/Freifunk is always going to be more interesting and useful.
- mcpherrinm 3y agoHere's a better Tampnet map: https://6999076.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6999076/Misc/map/Tampnet%20map.pdf https://6999076.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6999076... This map is a bit more informative as to what's going on there -- the gulf of mexico network is page 2.
- woooooo 3y agoWhy not? Even if we were superhumanly competent at on-land infra, you still have to negotiate right of way and bury hundreds of miles of cable overland. The ocean way they just drop the cable off of the back of a boat.
- thenthenthen 3y agoAnyone know of a centralized ‘terrestrial’ cable map? This seems to be a highly fragmented space.
- imaginator 3y agoThe closest I've found is this one, but as you say, it's rather sparsely populated terrestrially: https://openinframap.org/#5.33/19.676/-108.238/P,T https://openinframap.org/#5.33/19.676/-108.238/P,T
- aziaziazi 3y agoAccording to legend of that map, what you see in the land are electricity cables
- schoen 3y agoThe main threat mentioned here is governments sabotaging cables in order to disrupt Internet connectivity, but another important one (that's deliberately invisible) is governments tapping these cables. Even though we have a lot more transport encryption nowadays, communications metadata is still very vulnerable, and undersea cables are appealing targets to spies.
- hulitu 3y ago> undersea cables are appealing targets to spies. Why go under the sea ? Frankfurt and London are beautiful towns. /s
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- megraf 3y agoI read a pretty good book about this, it's title was "Tubes, a journey to the center of the internet" - I would recommend it
- paul-nai 3y agoThe Hummingbird Project is a great movie about building these on land
- rfolstad 3y agoSeems like Starlink has potential to completely disrupt undersea cables once the network is larger. Obviously it wont ever be the same latency or bandwidth as an undersea cable but it would be near impossible to tap and much cheaper.
- kimburgess 3y agoYou're right that it won't be the same - it has the potential to be faster. Speed of light in a vacuum is higher than what can be achieved in a fiber-optic. Combine that with a more direct path than what can be achieved with an undersea cable and things start to get interesting.
- anotherboffin 3y agoGenuinely wondering why you mention “in a vacuum”, as the signal would have to go through the atmosphere.
- kimburgess 3y agoFor the inter-satellite links. First and last hop still need to pass from the ground to LEO. The obvious solution is to start yeeting compute and/or users into space.
- notakio 3y agoI vote for users. I'll stay down here with compute, I know how this ends.
- BenjiWiebe 3y agoAtmosphere is practically vacuum as far as speed of light goes. Fiber optic: 0.67c Atmosphere: 0.9997c Vacuum: 1c
- Gasp0de 3y agoWhy would it be near impossible to tap? Couldn't you just fly a drone around one of the ground stations and intercept all the communication?
- MengerSponge 3y agoThe maps are more up to date, but it isn't as magical as Neal Stephenson's 1996 "Mother Earth Mother Board" Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242682
- ensocode 3y agoThanks for sharing this insightful post, and also the other comments with maps and movie recommendations. This is such an interesting topic
- hiidrew 3y agoThis map makes my optimistic about humankind. Similar to https://patrickcollison.com/fast https://patrickcollison.com/fast. Amazing we can achieve such feats, it's inspiring.
- getarofilter 3y ago[dead]