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Google Planning New Undersea Cable Across Pacific?
tregetour writes "Google is planning a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009, Communications Day reports: 'Google would not strictly confirm or deny the existence of the Unity plan today, with spokesman Barry Schnitt telling our North American correspondent Patrick Neighly that "Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We're not commenting on any of these plans." However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable. Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways — considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific.'"
So will the NSA tap it at the google datacenter with their permission ala AT&T or will the Navy have to tap it will one of those fancy subs we keep hearing about that lifts the cable off the seabed and can splice without interruption?
Because you know there's no way "homeland security" is letting that happen without monitoring.
You know with these kinds of resources, if Google ever did turn evil, we'd never figure it out until it was far too late...
...And allowing it to (dis)allow oppressive governments to continue to block/monitor Internet access.
This may have been a brilliant move on Googles' part. Fully cooperate with the Chinese governments' "Great Firewall" until they could put themselves in a position to undermine that authority.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
OK, it's a little faster, and probably would be a win for videoconferencing and perhaps video surveillance.
Anything else?
"Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable." Submarine's run on cables?!
I think it is great if it is true. I like the redundancy plan. But, since they don't specify the route, I am very skeptical. On the other hand, who am I to talk. I have never put a job opening on Monster looking for a "submarine cable negotiator." That is frickin' hilarious.
Me? I would go up through Alaska, through Russia via the Bering Sea. Cap'n Sig would do most of the work for me on the Northwestern. I would avoid doing a Portland-to-Tokyo route because of the ring-o-fire thingy.
I fell in to a burning ring of fire, I went down,down,down and the flames went higher. And my mod went lower.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
This affects every single person that connects to the internet. If there's more high tier bandwidth available, hosting costs and ISP costs go down and speeds go up. Yeah SBC and those crappier ISPs need to upgrade their local routers and switches and they never will but for people with real connections like businesses and stuff that need and get a lot of bandwidth, now they'll probably have to pay less for it so everyone wins. Like say the largest food packager whose name escapes me at the moment has to connect to all their overseas suppliers for inventory purposes and stuff. They're currently crammed on an overpriced because it's overcrowded satellite or other undersea connection. Well now they have 2 an additional choice of how to run it so naturally the price goes down and their expenses go down so they can cut costs and our food gets cheaper. And A LOT of businesses use fast intercontinental connections so hopefully all of our stuff will get a tiny bit cheaper.
That and I hope they run the cable right by my house so I can get like a 100 Gb/sec connection lol. Unlikely though since I live in Wisconsin
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Why are we trying to reduce the cost of Asian providers when the US' is still overpriced, unreliable, and underserved?
Last time I checked, Japan and SK had amazing speeds (10-100mbit) for very affordable prices. It's still a matter of government intervention, not corporate meddling.
Quote: "or will the Navy have to tap it will one of those fancy subs we keep hearing about that lifts the cable off the seabed and can splice without interruption?"
Without interruption? Is that really possible? In order to interrupt light across a fiber & tap into it, you'd have to:
1. Cut the fiber
2. Install a WDM splitter like device that shoots off each colour into seperate physical fibers, so that each can be tapped individually
3. Install another WDM aggregation device that can re-assemble the light waves
4. Splice the fiber back together
5. Somehow test that everything is back to normal
6. Somehow provide power for the WDM devices without sucking it form the under-sea powerlines for the other optical repeaters, as this would surely set off some alarm.
7. Accomplish steps 1-5 faster than the speed of light so that no photon goes missing.
How's that possible?
I could see them accomplishing this either from the get go though...
A. Original boat that drops the fiber down into seabed already includes the WDM and/or whatever other tapping equipment from day 1 by CIA/NSA using fear/threat tactics to get the job done for free! Oh wait no... this is the Bush administration... just show them a copy of the Patriot Act.
or
B. This would be accomplished without knowledge of purchasing companies / or by infiltrating CIA/NSA staff as part of the crew responsible for the fiber optic cable repearter/aplifier deployment
These are scary times we live in...
I say that we need a BGP4 to BGP4E migration... where "E" = Encryption... until such day as CIA/NSA gets a hold of a quantum computer... then we're all F**)$# 'ed !!!
Ahh what fun it is to be writing (potential) conspiracy theories at 8:30 AM!
Satellite is great for some applications, but lousy for real-time communications.
Video surveillance and satellite would work fine together: a 1 second delay usually isn't a concern in such applications. Same thing with batch jobs and large file transfers.
But for short message/interactive applications (games, shells, telephone communications), an undersea cable is, right now, the best communications path. Very high bandwidth and shortest-path. The big downside of a cable is that it is more vulnerable to damage by nature or by vandalism.
Satellites are awesome for some applications, but they have significant trade-offs. Namely, expensive, unrepairable equipment, jamming potential, and the highest conversational delays.
As I understand it, Australia (and probably everyone else, for that matter) has been getting reamed by the USA as regards Internet peering arrangements. Bandwidth costs have always been higher here, and it's not all to do with a lack of local competition, although that used to be a credible story back when Telstra was charging twenty cents a megabyte for permanent dial-up connectivity. These days the economic pressure is mostly conspicuous for the fact that local hosting services are so expensive. If Google busts up that cosy little oligopoly, I'll love them to bits for it. To gigabits, even. (Sorry. Preemptive pun. Someone had to do it.)
Is this a part of Google's answer to the whole carrier sabre-rattling about non-neutrality and wanting a slice of Google's profits? There's no better way to ensure fair treatment than to provide your own infrastructure. Is this Google's way of saying to the carriers, "get over it, guys -- bandwidth is a fricken commodity now, and we're going to compete with you to make it so, so kiss your old monopoly profits goodbye." There's a high barrier to entry in this market, and you'd be mad to buy your way in only to compete all the profits out of it -- unless you happen to be a major consumer of bandwidth yourself, like Google.
Must... not... get... hopes... up...
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
has officially commenced.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
What about Africa? This is a continent that needs Internet access more than any other and a new undersea cable is embroiled in bitter political animosity IMHO Google could generate a lot of good will for itself focusing in the area that needs the most attention.
"...behind their international gateways..."
You mean Firewalls, don't you?
Now they wont even have to run their spiders anymore, nor use gmail to create targeted ads.
They will just snoop everybodies traffic....
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
More work for the US Navy. They'll have to get down there and tap that sucker like they have with the telecom undersea cables....
I guess that's one way to achieve net neutrality. Now they just need to run their own backbone to every major peering point and ISP in the rest of the world...
"Tap it"? Why would the NSA have to "tap it"?
Oh, wait... you still think that Google is some kind of independent tie-wearing, reserved-parking-space, Tuesday-is-Baked-Ziti-Day-in-the-Cafeteria corporate entity? You don't in the least bit suspect that they're a beard for all the domestic spying and privacy-wresting activity that your typical geek would be screaming about if it weren't for the fact that the perpetrator was a golden era dot.com foosball-flicking start-up?
"I don't mind if you spy on me, just do it in a way that consumes less energy than NASCAR." Is that your mantra, Bunky?
Hey, I'd love to stay and chat, but someone is knocking on my door...
Don't get the vapors, everyone. Google is buying one fiber pair. This will lower their costs, but only that. There will be, what, 200+ fiber pairs in that cable. There will be some to go around if anyone else wants to pony up.
As for "considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific,'" I don't follow that at all. Google doesn't sell transit. The new cable might do that, but not because of Google - because real ISPs will get other fiber pairs and use them to sell transit.
Next, we'll get articles about how Google's corporate jets will revolutionize air transport in North America ! (At least, for Google execs.)
The New World Order will unite all the world, breed us into a Grey Race, destroy our culture so we must get our values from television and malls, and then will make us all slaves to even more boring corporate jobs, but they'll be "happy" in the Apple/Google way.
I almost want Microsoft to win, because at least they've got part of the fascist aesthetic down. This Nanny Corporate State NWO bullshit is just depressingly silly.
Anti-Globalism
i can be 'unhappy' in a gray world of corporate google than the current what-the-hell-is-this world we are living in now.
Read radical news here
Faster pr0n downloads for the Asians. And the expats living in asia.
In Asia Pacific? Well Japan has FTTH for cheap.. Um... I know the US has made sure India has cheap enough internet access... So forget Asia, let's make cheap broadband here. Not $40/month for 3Mbps or 5Mbps. How about $20? Or how about $40/month for 10Mbps? I know you like holding onto your money, but faster kthx
It's great for some! The endless spam and hack attempts from the PRC have a much faster route over once the fiber is there.
If any stupid net.neutrality laws get passed it gives the goog bargining power. "oh hello data pipe operator. Want to peer with us? We have Asia. We'll trade you for unfettered access to the americas"
fibre is currency in this century.
Need Mercedes parts ?
When did Google hire Randy Waterhouse?
"Saunders' presentation warned of the potential for the new cables to create a new trans-Pacific capacity bubble"
...What?
moox. for a new generation.
I was prompted me to look at the wikipedia and found this interesting article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable
I particularly found very interesting the map with all the undersea cables in the world. Pretty cool.
Why can't the USA get decent internet?
Why am I stuck with 1.5m/384k DSL?
When will FiOS get to Oklahoma!!!
Charming man. I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry one. -Arthur Dent
They're going to build Rapture under the sea!
its much lower latency.
Web Design
I think they may be preempting the net neutrality issue.
...
See, if the net does not become neutral (i.e. tiered access), they would be seriously affected and have to pay the ISPs so their sites are in the top tier (think servers where Adsense is served from).
If they now own the pipes, they can avoid this whole debate altogether.
Then again, the net neutrality issue is about the last mile (provider to end user), so that may not be it
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
http://mybroadband.co.za/blogs/2007/06/11/google-favours-kenya-over-sa/ With a Google data center in Kenya and its vested interest in expanding the world's infrastructure, we may see the day when a Google laid line gets dropped right off the African coast...
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
You are assuming that google is not an NSA front. Think about it, they monitor and record your web browsing habits, your travel plans, they scan your email, they want you to use their online word processor, ... That wanting to know everything about you and your behaviors and interests for the purpose of directed commercial advertising is a beautiful front. ;-)
This may have been a brilliant move on Googles' part. Fully cooperate with the Chinese governments' "Great Firewall" until they could put themselves in a position to undermine that authority.
The Google office, all the data it collected on Chinese individuals, and one end of that cable all exist in Chinese territory. Google operates at the pleasure of the Chinese government. The day Google attempts to move against that government is the day all Google's property and data becomes property of the government and Google's employees are arrested.
I would go up through Alaska, through Russia via the Bering Sea.
Environmentalists would never allow the cable to go through Alaska. I'm sure it would have to touch some sort of pristine wilderness and the lawsuits would never end.
Something is fishy about that map. On the West side there are 5 lines headed towards Asia, but on the Asian side there are only 2 lines coming in from the East. Do we have 3 cables only going to the mid-pacific? Also there is no explanation for the blue lines and the dotted line, what do these signify?
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Neal Stephenson did an article for Wired on the laying of global fiber optic cable about a decade ago. It's a long read but a good one (kind of like Snow Crash was). He travels around the world following the laying of FLAG (Fiber Link Around the Globe). He covers everything from laying the cable, to the landing points, to over-land connections, to telco monopolies, to everything else. If you're a geek and into submarine cable laying, then the article below is almost required reading. http://econ161.berkeley.edu/OpEd/virtual/stephenson.html
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
Don't miss this:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
It was posted (here I think) on a previous related story, it's very long, and I would not have expected to find the subject interesting, but the article makes it fascinating and very readable.
I was messing recently with Subrosasoft's free GlobalTraceRoute app (OS X). All the traces I did on Google went to Australia. www.google.com, www.google.co.uk, www.google.co.jp, the lot. Just tried to reproduce this from home but can't as I'm on satellite and the TTLs keep expiring.
A friend and I made the assumption that given the time of day (Approx. lunchtime, EDT), it was the middle of the night in Oz, so maybe Google was doing some kind of global load balancing, using places where resources were cheapest on a daily basis (i.e. at night) to do the bulk of processing. By this logic, the traceroute would move around the globe with the night, so maybe Australia, India, Europe, the US, back to Australia over 24 hours. However, when I tried the trace again around 1800 EDT, the destination was still Australia, as it was the next morning.
Was the software wrong? Is Google faking it to make it look as if it's in Oz? Or do they really have huge datacenter there?
Also there is no explanation for the blue lines and the dotted line, what do these signify?
That anyone can upload an image to Wikipedia?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Fiber is simply the gold standard. A single thread of fiber, with suitably expensive terminal equipment, has more bandwidth than the entire world's wireless devices. Once the infrastructure is in place, it can be upgraded at the end points with relative ease compared to the enormous cost of laying the fiber in the first place.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Rumor has it that "Undersea Transatlantic Cable" will be embedded in and inextricably intertwined [ouch!] with the next MS Windows release. VeryLongHorn indeed.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for!
If you read the text associated with the image (click on the image), you get:
"Map with examples of submarine communications cables in Europe (Mediterranean Sea, English Channel, and North Sea). Data taken from public sources for fishermen and is therefore not restricted in any sense. Created by Rarelibra 19:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC) for public domain use, using MapInfo Professional v8.5 and various mapping resources. This map is based on old (pre-1999) information and doesn't show, for example, the Southern Cross cables between Sydney, Auckland, Hawaii, and the USA. And although the cables between the USA and Japan seem to vanish somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean they do in fact go all the way to japan."
Text courtesy of Wikipedia.