Conversation

foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
Replying to
@Foone
the core of these cables (which carry the actual signals) is fiber optic, yes, but they're surrounded by conductive layers, which have a current passed down the cable. These power optical repeaters.
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
undersea cables use super-pure fibers letting them go much farther than other fiber optic cables, with the longest cables with no powered repeaters reaching 380 km (240 miles). But that's only so far...
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
and we have them going all over the place, across multiple huge oceans. So they need powered repeaters.
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
SO it's slightly confusing to say the shark is attacking the fiber optic cable... they are and they aren't. It's the fiber optic cable bundle, yes, but it's not because of the fiber optics that they are attacking it.
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
sharks are attracted to fiber optic cable bundles because of the electrical power going around the fiber optic parts, to power the fiber optic repeaters.
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
BTW the longest undersea cable is the SEA-ME-WE-3, which goes from Germany to Japan. And a lot of places inbetween, of course.
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
annoyingly this is the only one I can find when trying to search "longest undersea cable". it's clearly not one single span, it stops a lot of places. those places presumably regenerate and network signals. I don't know what the longest single span is.
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
Could shortly be CAP-1 (targeting 2023 Q4), which is LA to the Philippines, 12,000km (7456 miles)
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foone🏳️‍⚧️
@Foone
that cable is 1/6th Amazon and 5/6ths Facebook. I didn't realize until just now that you could look up which companies were paying for undersea cables and now I'm afraid to use this power.
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GeneralTsoLit
@Tso_Lit
Replying to
@Foone
One cable lands in my city. Carries 192Tb/s of data... Absolutely wild that I only get 35mb/s up at my house... but there's this level of infrastructure terminating in my city
LudicDave
@LudicDave
Replying to
@Foone
I use that site in my classes a lot, to show the students how data travels around the world, and why the US is in such a good place to spy on everybody. We also have fun discussing how to isolate Iceland.
i screw, i nut, i bolt
@kiefac
Replying to
@Foone
It is a bit weird to think about how, yea, someone *owns* these cables. It's not a mysterious "them" or even world governments (with some exceptions... cute of russia to name one of theirs the Polar Express), it's just... ISPs and big-tech corps. Makes sense I suppose