A huge internet cable connecting the US and Japan is about to go live

From:
Science alert
.
By Fiona MacDonald 30 Jun 2016

Subtitle:
"It's promising to deliver 60 Terabits per second"

.
www.sciencealert.com...
.
.

.
. . .
.
The six-fibre pair cable – appropriately dubbed 'FASTER' – runs 9,000 kilometres, all the way from Oregon to the east coast of Japan, with hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. It also has the potential to connect the US with other major cities across Asia.
.
. . .
.
The project was first announced back in 2014, and was led by a collaboration of six companies - Google, Global Transit, China Telecom Global, Singtel, China Mobile International, and KDDI. Japanese IT giant NEC Corporation was tasked with building the cable itself.
.
. . .
.
The race is also on to develop technology that'll connect the entire world to the internet, not just the major fibre hubs. Google is pushing forward with its Project Loon, which aims to deliver Wi-Fi to remote areas using hot air balloons. Facebook, on the other hand, is building a fleet of solar-powered drones to beam down internet.
.
. . .
.

.
Welllllllllllllll . . . progress . . . evidently.
.
If oligarchy and Google tyranny can be called progress. LOL.
.
It does sound exciting, though.
.
I would have liked to have read more about the design and construction of the cable, however.
.
And I wonder how China is going to connect to it given that they were major funders of it, if I understand the article well.
.
I wonder how much of the Library of Congress could be transmitted in that 60 Terabytes/sec???
.
I wish the growing communications and computer infrastructure did not have such inherent tyranny built into it.
.

a reply to: BO XIAN

There's big money in laying these cables. Especially after an earthquake damages them.

a reply to: Kester

I was wondering that. How do they handle repairs?

Just lay a new cable? or haul the broken ends up somehow and re-splice them? I bet that gets interesting with fiber optics.

I wonder what the diameter is of these cables. Anyone know?

a reply to: BO XIAN

All I know is the labourers earn £600 a day, and my well placed informant says, "When it goes wrong everyone just walks away. We're leaving a terrible mess for our descendants."

a reply to: Kester

WOW. That's some considerable pocket change for a day's work!
.
So, it sounds like they just lay a new cable. So the tech to insure a cable doesn't break must be incredible.
.
I assume they have some significant slack in it because of plate techtonics?
.
And then there's fishing trawlers?
.

a reply to: BO XIAN

The boss wears a nice shirt.

a reply to: BO XIAN

There's probably a fairly good example of how this works:

Recently, the undersea cable that runs between mainland Australia and Tasmania was damaged.
It took them MONTHS just to LOCATE the site at which the cable had been damaged, let alone begin to repair it. The whole thing was an absolute debacle, and thousands upon thousands of internet users in Tasmania were reduced to dial-up speeds for up to 3 weeks while ISPs scrambled to try to access additional bandwidth.

The entire thing was a complete mess.

www.abc.net.au...

originally posted by: Awen24
a reply to: BO XIAN

There's probably a fairly good example of how this works:

Recently, the undersea cable that runs between mainland Australia and Tasmania was damaged.
It took them MONTHS just to LOCATE the site at which the cable had been damaged, let alone begin to repair it. The whole thing was an absolute debacle, and thousands upon thousands of internet users in Tasmania were reduced to dial-up speeds for up to 3 weeks while ISPs scrambled to try to access additional bandwidth.

The entire thing was a complete mess.


www.abc.net.au...

Wow. Thanks.

I know when I was in the Taipe in the Navy in 1970 . . . a satellite phoncon involved the significant delay between downlink, uplink etc. etc. . . . an awkward way to have a voice call.

However, even then, the undersea cables were as though calling across town. So clearly the cables are an advantage in a list of ways.

But what a mess to repair! One would think they'd have come up with more functional options over the decades.

a reply to: Awen24

You wouldn't want to find the break too quick if you were on £600 a day . . .

a reply to: Kester

Good point. LOL.

Just HOW does one go about finding such a break?

a reply to: Awen24

To be fair on the Bass Strait cable fault, the fibre communications were part of the 600MW HVDC power cable and the power cable suffered the fault with the internet remaining in service until the cable was cut to replace the faulted section. There is another fibre cable and there was some wrangling between providers determining sharing of facilities so certain customers were badly affected while others were not.

It took a long time to pinpoint the location of the fault but communications went unaffected until then. An internet-only fibre cable would be far more secure in the long term.

a reply to: BO XIAN

The fault is located within a km or so by injecting a signal and measuring the echo time. After that a ship has to go out and try visual inspection with a submersible first to try and nail the precise location if possible, then pull the cable up onto the deck to perform the repair(s).

a reply to: Kester

Laborers who do what and work for who/ what kind of companies?

I need some new career ideas..

a reply to: BO XIAN

I know the encasement for the cable was approximately 36 inches in diameter,never got to see actual cables though
,that was at Mira Mar AFB,had to babysit it for a week

a reply to: BO XIAN

A potted History of Undersea Cables ...

en.m.wikipedia.org...

And for UK Geeks ...

www.theregister.co.uk...

And what they look like through an ROV's eyes ...

m.youtube.com...

A direct line from the NSA to Japan, if all japanese are happy with it?

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
A direct line from the NSA to Japan, if all japanese are happy with it?

Glad you pointed that out.
Aol japan is with the NSA, the web page changed overnight with the "sign in" page all ready signed in. Trust me I know what I'm talking about. The cable was only routed through the Hawaiian Islands because that is where the .... yep... I won't continue./

Why do we need that though. We have internet at high enough speed, nobody seems to have any patients anymore. I suppose it goes right over the top of the fault that caused the big earthquake. They will be repairing it soon.

a reply to: Pilgrum

Ahhhh. Thanks.

Figured it had to be something like that but really had no clue.

a reply to: Oldtimer2

WOW. I didn't realize it was that thick! I thought maybe 6" or a foot.

How on earth do they transport such a cable?