8 ms·

Submarine Cable Map

66 points by leonvonblut 12y ago

chris_wot 12y ago
Is this data open? If so, I wonder if it can be added to OpenStreetMap?
- eb0la 12y ago
  It's not open; but you can get cable locations near shore in marine maps. Most cable cut incidents occur either fishing or anchoring a vessel. That's why cable operators send this data to cartography providers.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  FCC regulates them in the US, "Submarine Cable License", they don't just pop out of any document system though. The one I did find: http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=947070 http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=9... Uses Google data to show the locations, along with the lat/long (using the textual lat longs should be fine from a copyright/data license perspective, though I think lots of OSM people would hem and haw about it being in the same document as Google data). A lot of the filings are ownership updates to existing cables and don't contain any information about the locations of the cables.
- _mulder_ 12y ago
  In the UK and Europe it largely is. KIS-ORCA is one project. http://www.kis-orca.eu/map http://www.kis-orca.eu/map
jjp 12y ago
In case anybody else wonders the routes are stylised and not the physical route and landing points are not the exact location.
- chippy 12y ago
  Cartography, essentially. In other words, it's likely that the cables are laid all within a few feet of each other in some places, or bundled together. To show this as it appears would make the map look confusing and would not convey what it wants to show. This is more of an infographic, or a network diagram.
- anonymfus 12y ago
  And there is also more stylised version, with medieval style: http://submarine-cable-map-2015.telegeography.com/ http://submarine-cable-map-2015.telegeography.com/ https://www.telegeography.com/telecom-maps/submarine-cable-map/index.html https://www.telegeography.com/telecom-maps/submarine-cable-m...
  - jjp 12y ago
    Nice rendering and the additional information on latency from Great Britain as the pseudo-scale and changes in lit fibre all nice additions.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
  Also the exact locations are sometimes kept secret to prevent sabotage.
  - _mulder_ 12y ago
    Perhaps in Russia or China. In the UK and Europe there is a big effort to prevent accidental 'sabotage', usually from fishermen. KIS-ORCA[1] project has a very detailed GIS map for undersea infrastructure. [1] http://www.kis-orca.eu/map#.VQg_jnysWSo http://www.kis-orca.eu/map#.VQg_jnysWSo
jschulenklopper 12y ago
Perfect occasion to point to the absolutely wonderful article "Mother Earth Mother Board" in which 'the hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth' - Neal Stephenson. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html (Quite a long read though: over 40k words.)
- jschulenklopper 12y ago
  And this should be the cable project that Neal Stephenson described: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/flag-europe-asia-fea http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/flag-euro...
- bobdvb 12y ago
  I love that article.
bobdvb 12y ago
Old news, but it is also worth pointing to Greg's Cable Map: http://www.cablemap.info http://www.cablemap.info
agd 12y ago
Great display of one of the reasons why GCHQ and the NSA can intercept so much.
alex_hitchins 12y ago
To anyone visiting the UK who finds this sort of thing interesting, I recommend Porthcurno Telegraph Museum. http://www.porthcurno.org.uk http://www.porthcurno.org.uk
- colinramsay 12y ago
  My partner used to work there and did research in their archives as part of her PhD research. It's well worth a trip since you have the astonishing Minack Theatre [1] and a very beautiful beach within walking distance [2]. It's not often you see Cornwall on HN :) [1] https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/product_image/public/Minack02.jpg?itok=klfRUvgB https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/pro... [2] https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/product_image/public/PorthcurnoPW.jpg?itok=6ilofe1N https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/pro...
mrfusion 12y ago
Do the gray wires mean anything special? There are a lot going to the north pole. Also I see no one has bothered hooking up Antarctica. (I always thought that would be a good place for a data center in light of free cooling.)
- sneak 12y ago
  How exactly would it be powered?
  - mrfusion 12y ago
    How about tidal power? Or actually aren't there giant icebergs that break off and float away each year? Maybe there's way to have that pull a cable wrapped around around a very geared up generator. .. not sure how to explain this idea ...
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      Supplying any hardware to Antarctica is hugely expensive and makes no sense whatsoever, except for the purpose of exploring Antarctica itself. Maintaining a submarine cable there would also be extremely expensive. And you just don't need to go to such extreme conditions to cool down a data center; it's cool enough in Northern Europe. And you can even utilize the heat (here, we use it to warm up houses).
    - dmd 12y ago
      ... if it were attached to a cable, it wouldn't float away.
- 1_player 12y ago
  I was wondering the same thing, I found this article: http://www.arcticyearbook.com/index.php/briefing-notes2014/117-the-arctic-a-new-internet-highway http://www.arcticyearbook.com/index.php/briefing-notes2014/1... I skimmed through it, looks like that it's an upcoming cable network to diminish the latency on Asia-Europe connections. Unfeasible before global warming and melting icecaps.
- 12y ago
urschrei 12y ago
Related: Submarine Cable Taps http://lifewinning.com/submarine-cable-taps/ http://lifewinning.com/submarine-cable-taps/ (Source: https://github.com/lifewinning/submarine-cable-taps https://github.com/lifewinning/submarine-cable-taps)
virtuallynathan 12y ago
http://subtelforum.com/articles/products/submarine-cable-almanac/ http://subtelforum.com/articles/products/submarine-cable-alm... is another great resource for submarine cable aficionados.
gworf 12y ago
Also interesting is the Level 3 Network Map: http://maps.level3.com/default/ http://maps.level3.com/default/
avargas 12y ago
I'm curious why none of the cables go through the Gulf of Mexico into Texas (or somewhere around there)? There are many datacenters around Texas, I'd think it would make sense to have some cables going there to speed things up, or maybe I'm wrong?
- abakker 12y ago
  seems like the design minimizes the runs that are underwater. The gulf is VERY deep at the center, and the distance saved is probably negligible compared to the easier to maintain overland routes. Just my guess though.
brenfrow 12y ago
I was actually just getting a kick learning where all the "major" cities were up in North Canada.
pavel_lishin 12y ago
I'd love it if someone made a Mini-Metro-like game, but instead of building a subway in a city, you're trying to wire a planet. http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/ http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/
dang 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242448
mikey_p 12y ago
There's also a project that attempts to map which AWS region is closest to a country via undersea cable information: https://github.com/turnkeylinux/aws-datacenters https://github.com/turnkeylinux/aws-datacenters
allending 12y ago
Is there a way to sort this by capacity, completion date, and other metrics? I'd love to see a timeline view of how submarine cable capacity has changed over the last decade.
- aet 12y ago
  Yes, that would be fascinating. Nice research project for you. Please report back :) Edit: You could probably find some info here https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-327090A2.pdf https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-327090A2.p...
hackuser 12y ago
What costs less, laying and operating cable underwater or over mountains? That is, what are the relative costs of land and submarine cables for long distances? Looking at the runs that follow the coasts of South America, SE Asia, and northern Canada, I wonder why some of them weren't run over land. (Obviously very many cables do run over land; this map only shows submarine cables.) In my imagination, it seems easier to drop a cable from big spool on a ship than to run it over mountains, for example, but I really have no idea.

Submarine Cable Map

66 points by leonvonblut 12y ago

chris_wot 12y ago

Is this data open? If so, I wonder if it can be added to OpenStreetMap?

eb0la 12y ago
It's not open; but you can get cable locations near shore in marine maps. Most cable cut incidents occur either fishing or anchoring a vessel. That's why cable operators send this data to cartography providers.
maxerickson 12y ago
FCC regulates them in the US, "Submarine Cable License", they don't just pop out of any document system though. The one I did find: http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=947070 http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=9... Uses Google data to show the locations, along with the lat/long (using the textual lat longs should be fine from a copyright/data license perspective, though I think lots of OSM people would hem and haw about it being in the same document as Google data). A lot of the filings are ownership updates to existing cables and don't contain any information about the locations of the cables.
_mulder_ 12y ago
In the UK and Europe it largely is. KIS-ORCA is one project. http://www.kis-orca.eu/map http://www.kis-orca.eu/map

jjp 12y ago

In case anybody else wonders the routes are stylised and not the physical route and landing points are not the exact location.

chippy 12y ago
Cartography, essentially. In other words, it's likely that the cables are laid all within a few feet of each other in some places, or bundled together. To show this as it appears would make the map look confusing and would not convey what it wants to show. This is more of an infographic, or a network diagram.
anonymfus 12y ago
And there is also more stylised version, with medieval style: http://submarine-cable-map-2015.telegeography.com/ http://submarine-cable-map-2015.telegeography.com/ https://www.telegeography.com/telecom-maps/submarine-cable-map/index.html https://www.telegeography.com/telecom-maps/submarine-cable-m...
- jjp 12y ago
  Nice rendering and the additional information on latency from Great Britain as the pseudo-scale and changes in lit fibre all nice additions.
MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
Also the exact locations are sometimes kept secret to prevent sabotage.
- _mulder_ 12y ago
  Perhaps in Russia or China. In the UK and Europe there is a big effort to prevent accidental 'sabotage', usually from fishermen. KIS-ORCA[1] project has a very detailed GIS map for undersea infrastructure. [1] http://www.kis-orca.eu/map#.VQg_jnysWSo http://www.kis-orca.eu/map#.VQg_jnysWSo

jschulenklopper 12y ago

Perfect occasion to point to the absolutely wonderful article "Mother Earth Mother Board" in which 'the hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth' - Neal Stephenson. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html (Quite a long read though: over 40k words.)

jschulenklopper 12y ago
And this should be the cable project that Neal Stephenson described: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/flag-europe-asia-fea http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/flag-euro...
bobdvb 12y ago
I love that article.

bobdvb 12y ago

Old news, but it is also worth pointing to Greg's Cable Map: http://www.cablemap.info http://www.cablemap.info

agd 12y ago

Great display of one of the reasons why GCHQ and the NSA can intercept so much.

alex_hitchins 12y ago

To anyone visiting the UK who finds this sort of thing interesting, I recommend Porthcurno Telegraph Museum. http://www.porthcurno.org.uk http://www.porthcurno.org.uk

colinramsay 12y ago
My partner used to work there and did research in their archives as part of her PhD research. It's well worth a trip since you have the astonishing Minack Theatre [1] and a very beautiful beach within walking distance [2]. It's not often you see Cornwall on HN :) [1] https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/product_image/public/Minack02.jpg?itok=klfRUvgB https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/pro... [2] https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/product_image/public/PorthcurnoPW.jpg?itok=6ilofe1N https://www.visitcornwall.com/sites/default/files/styles/pro...

mrfusion 12y ago

Do the gray wires mean anything special? There are a lot going to the north pole. Also I see no one has bothered hooking up Antarctica. (I always thought that would be a good place for a data center in light of free cooling.)

sneak 12y ago
How exactly would it be powered?
- mrfusion 12y ago
  How about tidal power? Or actually aren't there giant icebergs that break off and float away each year? Maybe there's way to have that pull a cable wrapped around around a very geared up generator. .. not sure how to explain this idea ...
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    Supplying any hardware to Antarctica is hugely expensive and makes no sense whatsoever, except for the purpose of exploring Antarctica itself. Maintaining a submarine cable there would also be extremely expensive. And you just don't need to go to such extreme conditions to cool down a data center; it's cool enough in Northern Europe. And you can even utilize the heat (here, we use it to warm up houses).
  - dmd 12y ago
    ... if it were attached to a cable, it wouldn't float away.
1_player 12y ago
I was wondering the same thing, I found this article: http://www.arcticyearbook.com/index.php/briefing-notes2014/117-the-arctic-a-new-internet-highway http://www.arcticyearbook.com/index.php/briefing-notes2014/1... I skimmed through it, looks like that it's an upcoming cable network to diminish the latency on Asia-Europe connections. Unfeasible before global warming and melting icecaps.
12y ago

urschrei 12y ago

Related: Submarine Cable Taps http://lifewinning.com/submarine-cable-taps/ http://lifewinning.com/submarine-cable-taps/ (Source: https://github.com/lifewinning/submarine-cable-taps https://github.com/lifewinning/submarine-cable-taps)

virtuallynathan 12y ago

http://subtelforum.com/articles/products/submarine-cable-almanac/ http://subtelforum.com/articles/products/submarine-cable-alm... is another great resource for submarine cable aficionados.

gworf 12y ago

Also interesting is the Level 3 Network Map: http://maps.level3.com/default/ http://maps.level3.com/default/

avargas 12y ago

I'm curious why none of the cables go through the Gulf of Mexico into Texas (or somewhere around there)? There are many datacenters around Texas, I'd think it would make sense to have some cables going there to speed things up, or maybe I'm wrong?

abakker 12y ago
seems like the design minimizes the runs that are underwater. The gulf is VERY deep at the center, and the distance saved is probably negligible compared to the easier to maintain overland routes. Just my guess though.

brenfrow 12y ago

I was actually just getting a kick learning where all the "major" cities were up in North Canada.

pavel_lishin 12y ago

I'd love it if someone made a Mini-Metro-like game, but instead of building a subway in a city, you're trying to wire a planet. http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/ http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/

dang 12y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8242448

mikey_p 12y ago

There's also a project that attempts to map which AWS region is closest to a country via undersea cable information: https://github.com/turnkeylinux/aws-datacenters https://github.com/turnkeylinux/aws-datacenters

allending 12y ago

Is there a way to sort this by capacity, completion date, and other metrics? I'd love to see a timeline view of how submarine cable capacity has changed over the last decade.

aet 12y ago
Yes, that would be fascinating. Nice research project for you. Please report back :) Edit: You could probably find some info here https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-327090A2.pdf https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-327090A2.p...

hackuser 12y ago

What costs less, laying and operating cable underwater or over mountains? That is, what are the relative costs of land and submarine cables for long distances? Looking at the runs that follow the coasts of South America, SE Asia, and northern Canada, I wonder why some of them weren't run over land. (Obviously very many cables do run over land; this map only shows submarine cables.) In my imagination, it seems easier to drop a cable from big spool on a ship than to run it over mountains, for example, but I really have no idea.