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What other private companies have such cables? Google? How do they maintain them? At what point to these become considered "national security" assets (in the
by dpflan 2y ago
What other private companies have such cables? Google?
How do they maintain them?
At what point to these become considered "national security" assets (in the eyes of the owning company's nation)?
Do they rent them out as business as well?
(This blog looks like it could have many such answers, but looking for a HN-comment-sized answer.)
- rootusrootus 2y ago> What other private companies have such cables? Google? Aren't most of them likely to be privately owned? Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are known to have undersea cables. I bet there are a bunch owned by companies that aren't generally known to regular people. For example, Tata, which AFAIK has the largest amount of undersea cables.
- samier-trellis 2y agoDon't some big hedge funds/finance players also have such cables?
- buildbot 2y agoMaybe, but these days, I believe microwave towers are preferred, lower latency and shorter paths. https://www.rec-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/High-Frequency-Trading-Radio-Link-Article10-12.pdf https://www.rec-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/High-Freq...
- RoderickBeck 2y agoAnd far less bandwidth. Microwave is used for ultr-low latency trading. But most financials ride subsea cables like everyone else.
- throwaway314155 2y agoWhat the hell does Tata need underseas cables for?
- placardloop 2y agoTata is one of the largest telecoms in India and is a Tier 1 network that forms the backbone of the modern internet.
- throwaway314155 2y agoOh...so not the consultancy agency. Got it.
- paxys 2y agoSame conglomerate, different company
- cryptica 2y agoIt's becoming apparent that many large tech companies were government-backed entities and their success was fueled by public money. Where else did they get the rights to do this kind of stuff? Surely the public owns these cables as they are built in public waters.
- eru 2y agoThat's why the public also owns all off-shore oil rigs and cruise ships currently at sea?
- ianburrell 2y agoDoes the government own your car cause you drive on public roads? It is possible to build on public land if pay the government land rent, the government doesn't own the building and isn't involved in funding. Also, international waters outside of the boundaries of countries aren't owned by anyone. They probably should be owned by UN to help with problems like overfishing.
- robertlagrant 2y agoWhich nation owns a cable under international waters?
- _1 2y agoThe ones that can hold onto them.
- lxgr 2y agoI'd say the owner owns it, which these days is usually not a nation. What's probably more interesting is what law governs them, and it turns out they're regulated under several conventions, including a dedicated one from 1884 and the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). [1] has a pretty good summary if you're curious. [1] https://www.noaa.gov/general-counsel/gc-international-section/submarine-cables-international-framework https://www.noaa.gov/general-counsel/gc-international-sectio...
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago> What other private companies have such cables? Google Quite a few, mostly run by telecom companies, often with a few big users/governments in partnership (including Google/Meta/Amazon etc). A Meta supported Atlantic cable was completed last year. https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
- toast0 2y agoTraditionally, undersea cables were owned / maintained by telephone companies or partnerships of several. Over time, that morphed to telecoms companies, including dedicated networking companies. They'd run their own stuff on the cables and lease out excess capacity. As big tech has been concentrating and also doing more global networking, and running their own backbones and things, they became heavy users of these cables, and then partners, and now sometimes sole owners. I suspect the actual maritime operations are contracted out. I don't know how accurate this is, but it seems like a good start towards a list of cables where big tech is involved [1] [1] https://blog.telegeography.com/telegeographys-content-providers-submarine-cable-holdings-list https://blog.telegeography.com/telegeographys-content-provid...
- RoderickBeck 2y agoMaintenance and repair is third party. Subcom, Alcatel, etc.
- heraldgeezer 2y agoLookup Tier 1 ISPs, they usually have them.
- jhalstead 2y agoYou can see some of the cables in https://cloud.google.com/about/locations#network https://cloud.google.com/about/locations#network
- DANmode 2y ago> At what point to these become considered "national security" assets Decades ago.
- RoderickBeck 2y agoThey are private assets. And really it is impossible to protect them. How do you protect 1.5 million kilometers of spaghetti?
- BrandonMarc 2y agoI expect the company sees them as private, so that they'll only share capacity with competitors when they want to and for the right price, untilllllll .... Some other country decides to pull shenanigans and cut / hack the cable, in which case the company will insist the U.S. gov't get involved, maybe pay for the repair. Saying it's crucial for national security.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fragmede 2y ago> Do they rent them out as business as well? Microsoft/Google/AWS rent out this capacity in the form of networking capacity on their respective clouds. Your bits between their DCs likely doesn't traverse the public Internet (because that costs them more).