3 ms·
Overlapping is guaranteed in at least every case where a new cable has a more southern/western terminal on one but a more northern/eastern terminal on the other
by lxgr 2y ago
Overlapping is guaranteed in at least every case where a new cable has a more southern/western terminal on one but a more northern/eastern terminal on the other continent as an existing one.
No idea if specific care is taken to avoid that, or if it's even a problem, but I could imagine so for cables that are buried in the seabed – the act of burying the new one could damage the existing one.
But cables are only buried in shallow waters, is my understanding (where there's high risk of an anchor destroying them), so as long as the point of overlap or intersection is in deep seas, I'd imagine it to not be a problem.
- dguest 2y agoYeah it's a 2d geometry, of course some of the cables will cross. The other reason that overlapping would be an issue is if they need to pull up a section to repair it and it's directly under another cable. But the ocean is really damn big and there are only O(100s) of submarine cables. In both the burying in shallow water case, and the deep water maintenance case, I'm guessing the chances of two cables being in the same place is very very small.