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It’s impossible to protect these cables so the only thing you can do is build in massive redundancy. Strategically it is probably cheaper to lay down many dozen
by blindriver 2y ago
It’s impossible to protect these cables so the only thing you can do is build in massive redundancy. Strategically it is probably cheaper to lay down many dozens of these cables in different locations than expect to protect them
- ksec 2y agoBut I assume layering cable is not a one time cost right? There should be some operation cost involved? Such as maintenance? I am still hoping sometime we could have massive amount of hollow fibre undersea cable to reduce latency between different continents.
- haneefmubarak 2y agoOperational costs (outside of repairing cuts) round to zero in comparison to the capital costs of laying the initial cable. There are OLD cables that are still active, despite relatively low bandwidth, because going and disconnecting everything on either end (even though the cable would remain there) is considered an additional unnecessary cost.
- kortilla 2y agoNo, you don’t do maintenance on them. They are designed to be laid and forgotten.
- anttihaapala 2y agoIf you consider an underwater cable running from Finland to Germany or Sweden to Lithuania in the Baltic Sea, it is virtually impossible for a ship travelling from St. Petersburg to the Kattegat to avoid passing over it, so redundancy can do only that much there.
- logicchains 2y agoMaybe a stupid question, but is it possible to run a power cable next to the internet cables, so any ship dragging its anchor over the cables gets a rude surprise? Or that wouldn't work underwater?
- Etheryte 2y agoThat wouldn't do anything, you'd just be sending it straight to ground.
- immibis 2y ago"straight to ground" is not how electricity works, but yes, they'd probably just destroy the cable in that spot, and the anchor would have only a slight scar on it at most
- kortilla 2y agoUndersea cables already have electric cables to power the embedded repeaters
- tzs 2y agoA big problem with that in general is that there is an accidental cable cut from a ship about every 3 days on average. Deliberate cable cuts are rare.
- diggan 2y ago> If you consider an underwater cable running from Finland to Germany or Sweden Well, if you only think about direct links, then yes. But run 5 cables up and down the coasts of Sweden<>Finland, then also for Sweden<>Germany, Denmark<>Sweden and Denmark<>Germany and you start having a lot of redundancy. Of course, that also adds a lot of ongoing costs for infrastructure, monitoring and maintenance, so not a silver bullet exactly.
- mrandish 2y agoAgreed, but at the same time it would also be worthwhile to look at ways to increase our detection and policing of shipping around these cables. I'm no expert but I imagine there are ways to speed up naval reaction times, tighten penalties for ships going dark (transponder off) and set new policy norms enabling rapid investigation. Basically things that make it harder for bad actors to maintain plausible deniability. So far, a lot of this has been done with relatively low cost and low risk for the perpetrators. The fact this Chinese ship was chased down and stopped before getting too far away was actually pretty lucky. If we formalize new systems and policies to ensure the instant a cable is cut there are navy ships converging on suspect ships - that will shift the cost calculus of the bad guys. If every cable attack requires a special submarine deploying a demolition team underwater near the target, it gets a lot more expensive and if caught there's little deniability. If these kinds of attacks continue then I expect we'll see some extra-judicial direct action consequences imposed. Like a ship that gets away later having a mysterious accident causing it to slowly sink in deep water (thank goodness another passing ship was nearby to rescue the crew!). While I don't like it, when bad actors figure out a way to repeatedly avoid consequences, sometimes a little rule bending is needed.
- amelius 2y agoI suspect the reaction time loses importance if the enemy can just attach an explosive payload with a timer. But perhaps it is somehow detectable.
- mrandish 2y agoYes, there may be no way to avoid it turning into another cycle of measures vs counter-measures. The important thing is to increase the costs and difficulty for the bad guys while decreasing the disruption caused by attacking one cable.
- nradov 2y agoAttaching an explosive to an undersea cable requires trained divers or an ROV, plus at least a little bit of specialized equipment and a few hours to work. It can be done but it's a lot harder than just dragging an anchor.
- fpoling 2y agoOne ship with an anchor on the bottom can destroy 100 cables just as well as one.
- ViewTrick1002 2y agoYou can also do the extra work to bury the cable.
- lostmsu 2y agoProbably impractical. Digging underwater is much harder than carefully lowering something on the floor.
- raelming 2y agoThere's already underwater powered trenching/laying equipment they use to bury the cables within X miles from the shore. The Baltic Sea is probably shallow enough to bury it all the way across at a higher cost per mile of course.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThey have a handy tool for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe-and-cable-laying_plough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe-and-cable-laying_plough
- guidedlight 2y agoPlus it could cause damage to environmental ecosystems.
- Aloisius 2y agoThe C-Lion1 cable that was cut was reported buried 1 meter below the seabed. Unfortunately, that wasn't deep enough since heavy ship anchors which can dig in deeper than that.
- in_a_society 2y agoI wonder if the cable could be enclosed in some sort of container whose shape would make an anchor glance off its surface.
- munch117 2y agoThe cables are a lot thinner than you think. Such casing would vastly add to their bulk - and their cost.
- nox101 2y agoI don't know the engineering required but wouldn't a few small exploding drones handle this? (by "handle" I mean break the cable). 20 cables, 20+ drones (send 100 for redundancy). We've had deep sea ROVs since the 80s. Communication is harder but we have autonomous navigation now so fire and forget?
- nox101 2y agoAre the downvotes because this wouldn't work to sabotage the cables or because it would work?
- throwaway2037 2y agoHow much more are you willing to pay for your Internet service for this redundancy? Me? Zero. It is not a good idea. To me, it is right up there with having extra aeroplanes waiting in case there is a malfunction, but exactly zero customers want to pay for that privilege.