3 ms·

Well except any country on the Eurasian landmass doesn't need submarine cables at all to have direct fiber optic links with the majority of the world's populati

Well except any country on the Eurasian landmass doesn't need submarine cables at all to have direct fiber optic links with the majority of the world's population.

yencabulator 3y ago
All you need to take out a land-based fiber optic link is a backhoe. Arguable less equipment than taking out a sea-based link. I don't think long-distance network cables are surveilled in their entirety.
ethbr1 3y ago
> with the majority of the world's population I'm having trouble getting past 4B with terrestrial links. China + India + Pakistan + Bangladesh + Russia (ignoring spanning the country) + Egypt + Vietnam + Thailand + Turkey + Myanmar + South Korea + Iraq + Afghanistan = 4.002 That's a lot of gnarly land to link.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  You're counting Egypt but not everybody else in Africa?
  - bilbo0s 3y ago
    Maybe the poster believes the other Africans don't use internet?
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Maybe poster was trying to see the feasibility of the post he was replying to. >> any country on the Eurasian landmass doesn't need submarine cables at all to have direct fiber... There's a big difference between Nigeria and Egypt, via terrestrial links, to east/south Asia.
    - Two4 3y ago
      Of course we don't - this comment is being relayed via ham radio from South Africa to the Antarctic, where thankfully the German research team has a satellite uplink.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    And none of the ~0.5B in the EU counts as EUrasia?
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      India and China are contiguous and contain 2.8b people. I started there. (Indonesia would have helped, but we didn't want subsea cabling... and kind of hard to get there without)
Aerroon 3y ago
There's political (and geographic?) trouble going from Europe to Asia. Your internet would have to go through countries like Russia and Iran. Or maybe Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and China. The shortest path from Eastern Europe to Japan would be a straight shot across Russia, but a tracert says that it goes all the way through Europe, through the Atlantic, through the US mainland, through the Pacific and finally to Japan. A cable through the Arctic ocean between Europe and Japan could potentially cut the journey to Asia in less than half.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  On a great circle over Canada, or over Russia? Note that while the two options sound significantly different and look significantly different on a conventional Mercator with the page break at the Bering Strait, they don't seem actually that different on a globe, or in terms of difficult geopolitics. In a couple years you won't need an icebreaker to make the trip...
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    Over Russia. From Norway to Svalbard to some island between Russia and Alaska. From there to Japan. It looks very goofy on a map but it's a lot shorter of a distance than expected.

Well except any country on the Eurasian landmass doesn't need submarine cables at all to have direct fiber optic links with the majority of the world's population.

yencabulator 3y ago

All you need to take out a land-based fiber optic link is a backhoe. Arguable less equipment than taking out a sea-based link. I don't think long-distance network cables are surveilled in their entirety.

ethbr1 3y ago

> with the majority of the world's population I'm having trouble getting past 4B with terrestrial links. China + India + Pakistan + Bangladesh + Russia (ignoring spanning the country) + Egypt + Vietnam + Thailand + Turkey + Myanmar + South Korea + Iraq + Afghanistan = 4.002 That's a lot of gnarly land to link.

bigbillheck 3y ago
You're counting Egypt but not everybody else in Africa?
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  Maybe the poster believes the other Africans don't use internet?
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Maybe poster was trying to see the feasibility of the post he was replying to. >> any country on the Eurasian landmass doesn't need submarine cables at all to have direct fiber... There's a big difference between Nigeria and Egypt, via terrestrial links, to east/south Asia.
  - Two4 3y ago
    Of course we don't - this comment is being relayed via ham radio from South Africa to the Antarctic, where thankfully the German research team has a satellite uplink.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  And none of the ~0.5B in the EU counts as EUrasia?
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    India and China are contiguous and contain 2.8b people. I started there. (Indonesia would have helped, but we didn't want subsea cabling... and kind of hard to get there without)

Aerroon 3y ago

There's political (and geographic?) trouble going from Europe to Asia. Your internet would have to go through countries like Russia and Iran. Or maybe Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and China. The shortest path from Eastern Europe to Japan would be a straight shot across Russia, but a tracert says that it goes all the way through Europe, through the Atlantic, through the US mainland, through the Pacific and finally to Japan. A cable through the Arctic ocean between Europe and Japan could potentially cut the journey to Asia in less than half.

LeifCarrotson 3y ago
On a great circle over Canada, or over Russia? Note that while the two options sound significantly different and look significantly different on a conventional Mercator with the page break at the Bering Strait, they don't seem actually that different on a globe, or in terms of difficult geopolitics. In a couple years you won't need an icebreaker to make the trip...
- Aerroon 3y ago
  Over Russia. From Norway to Svalbard to some island between Russia and Alaska. From there to Japan. It looks very goofy on a map but it's a lot shorter of a distance than expected.