Undersea CablesMICKEY MURGITTROYD

TYLER PENBERTHY

Cable Installation

90% of international data is transmitted by these cables

Hundreds of thousands of miles long

Cable-Layer Boats

Shallow water- soda can diameter

Deep Water- magic marker diameter

Buried using high pressure water jets

Damage to Cables

Sharks pose a threat to these cables

They chew on the cables that were laid

Google put on Shark Proof Wire wrappers on their cables

Extreme cost to put down and protect

Disruptions

Although it may seem to be more reliable, it may not be

Could be disrupted by boat anchors, trawling fishing vessels, natural disasters

To avoid this, a company is proposing running through Arctic

Previous impossible, but with climate change and melting ice caps, it may be possible

History of Transatlantic cables

1854, first transatlantic cable connected Newfoundland and Ireland

Four years later, the first transmission went through

It wrote,

“Laws, Whitehouse received five minutes signal. Coil signals too weak to relay. Try drive slow and regular. I have put intermediate pulley. Reply by coils.”

Spies

USSR transmitted weakly encoded messages in the Cold War

U.S.S. Halibut found cable between Naval bases and gathered transmissions

Installed a giant wiretap, operation IVY BELLS

Eventually sold back to Soviets by NSA analyst

Faster than Satellites

Cheaper than satellites

Well over a thousand satellites in orbit

Satellites have a two-fold problem: latency and bit loss

Developed optical fibers that transmit at 99.7% the speed of light

Forget Cyber-Warfare

To really cripple the internet you need scuba gear and a pair of wire cutters

Happened in Egypt in 2013

Just north of Alexandria, men cut the South-East-Asia-Middle-East-West-Europe 4 cable. (connects 3 continents)

Internet speed was crippled by 60% until line was repaired

Repairing Underwater Cables

In shallow water, robots are used to haul the cable to the surface

In deep water (6,500 feet or greater), a special grapnel is sent to haul the cable up

Sometimes the grapnel cuts the wire in two making it easier to repair

Undersea Backbone Built To Last 25 Years

285 communication cables at bottom of the ocean

22 of them not in use (dark cables)

Submarine cables have life expectancy of 25 years

An increase in Internet traffic would lead to more frequent cable upgrades