Facts about the Internet's undersea cables

In describing the Internet's wiring system, Neil Stephenson once compared the earth to a computer motherboard. At the basic level, there is evidence that the Internet is a spaghetti-work of long wires, ranging from telephone poles to disconnecting cable bundles and posting warning signs about buried fiber-optic lines.

Facts about the Internet's undersea cables

Here are 10 things you may not know about the Internet's undersea cable system.

1. Cable installation is a slow, difficult, inexperienced task.

Ninety-nine percent of the international data is transmitted by wires at the bottom of the ocean, known as submarine communication cables. In total, they are hundreds of thousands of miles long and as deep as Everest. The cable is installed through special layers called cable-layers.

This is more than falling off the wires that attach to the ankles - usually, the cable should be driven on the flat surfaces of the ocean floor and through coral reefs, landfills, fish beds, and other ecological habitats and common barriers. Precautions are taken to prevent it. The shallow water cable is about the same diameter as the soda canister, but deep water cables are very thin - about the size of a magic marker.

While the cost per mile for installation varies depending on the total length and destination, it always costs millions of dollars to run a cable across the ocean.

2. Shark are trying to eat the internet.

In describing the Internet's wiring system, Neil Stephenson once compared the earth to a computer motherboard. At the basic level, there is evidence that the Internet is a spaghetti-work of long wires, ranging from telephone poles to disconnecting cable bundles and posting warning signs about buried fiber-optic lines.

Facts about the Internet's undersea cables 

 But what we see is only a small part of the physical makeup of the net. The rest can be found in the coldest depths of the ocean. Here are 10 things you may not know about the Internet's undersea cable system.

3. The Internet is as weak as UNDERWATER.

Over a few years, some good construction worker puts his bulldozer in gear and kills Netflix for the entire continent. Although the sea is without construction equipment, they form Devasthan, and submarine cables pose many constant water hazards.

 Shares aside, the Internet is never threatened by blocking anchors of boats, trapping fishing vessels and natural disasters.

4. Connecting to world through internet cables is not new 

In 1854, the first transatlantic telegraph cable connecting Newfoundland and Ireland began. Four years later the first broadcast was sent: "Law, the White House received a five-minute signal. The coil signals are too weak to relay. Try slow and regular drives.

I kept the intermediate winch. Answer by the coil. "This is not very exciting. (" Whitehouse "refers to Wildman White House, chief electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, whom we discussed earlier.)

5. Submarine communication cables are fast and cheap.

There are over a thousand satellites in orbit, we are conducting landing probes on comets, and we are planning missions on Mars. We are living in the future! By itself, space is a better way to "wire" the Internet than our current method of driving long cables-slash-shark-buffets on the ocean floor.

Satellites are better than technology invented before telephone innovation - right? If it turns out, no. (Or at least, not yet.) Although both fiber optic cable and communication satellites were developed in the 1960s, satellites have a twofold problem: latency and bit loss. It takes time to send and receive signals to and from space. Meanwhile, researchers have developed optical fibers that can transmit information at 99.7 percent light speed.

For the idea of ​​how the Internet would be without an undersea cable, the Antarctica tour was the only continent with no physical connection to the net. The continent is based on satellites and bandwidth is at a premium, which is no small problem when considering the complex, data-intensive climate research. Today, Antarctic research centers produce more data than they can transmit into space.