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How To Build a $188M Submarine Cable System

Posted by kdawson on from the follow-along-at-home dept.

Bevan Slattery writes "PIPE Networks has launched a blog and an online progress report on the construction of its $188M (AU$200M), 6,900-km submarine cable system connecting Sydney (Australia) to Piti (Guam). People can follow the many tasks required to construct a submarine cable and track the project's progress. The daily blog provides unique insight into PPC-1's construction, including for example the different types of cable installed in 'benign' and 'aggressive' seabed conditions."

18 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by Kamineko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fascinating stuff. I'm still amazed that we have underwater cables at all. I had be shown a map of existing cables before I believed it. http://www1.alcatel-lucent.com/submarine/refs/index.htm http://networks.cs.ucdavis.edu/~zhuk/maps/alcatel_large.gif

    1. Re:Wow by daveb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      how did you think the bits moved through the tubes - wirelessly? Wireless is really really sucky for huge numbers bits. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of core internet traffic is cable based

    2. Re:Wow by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Informative

      Fascinating stuff. I'm still amazed that we have underwater cables at all. I had be shown a map of existing cables before I believed it.

      Undersea cables were a big deal among nerds about a decade ago when Blind Man's Bluff came out. The military was doing amazing whizbang things with tapping underseas cables, but they obviously couldn't let anyone know about it at the time and it took decades for the stories to come out. The subsequent preparation of the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter to tap fiber-optic cables got quite a bit of coverage in the news.

    3. Re:Wow by vidarh · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The interesting thing is that while laying underwater cable is pretty costly, for long legs it's very competitive compared to land based cable systems. Europe's connections to South East Asia for example are abysmal. From the UK at least huge chunks of the traffic end up routed the "long way round" over the Atlantic to the US, over land to the west coast and then over the pacific. Trust me when I say that ssh over a connection that takes the long way around from London to Beijing is no fun.

      Part of it is of course that for underwater cables you don't have to deal with pesky roads and buildings that people don't appreciate you laying cables over, and digging cable trenches cutting through built up areas is extremely expensive.

    4. Re:Wow by iamsamed · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did you know to send mailo overseas countries they use heavier then air flying machines? Isn't that amazing!

      Thank you very little! Now my religion that worships the Tin Sky God has to be disbanded and now I'm out of a job - again!

      Well, there's always that plastic lever god. You move it up or down, as the case may be, and your lights come on!

    5. Re:Wow by nacnud75 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Think that is amazing, check out this map of undersea cables, from 1901!

    6. Re:Wow by SickHumour · · Score: 2, Funny

      Those pictures remind me of our network cabinets at the office. Do they also have issues with the cables being tangled or mislabeled?

    7. Re:Wow by evanbd · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wireless is really really sucky for huge numbers bits.

      No kidding. I tried to send a 2 over a wireless network once, and it came out looking all distorted. Ever since, it's been all Cat5 for me. When I need to send a high-valued bit, it just works better.

    8. Re:Wow by Missing_dc · · Score: 3, Funny

      but Darling it's better, down where its wetter, take it from meeeeeee!!

      --
      How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
  2. Why Guam? by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Why would Australia, already with very limited high cost bandwidth to the rest of the world, bother building out cable to the small remote isolated island of Guam?
    Perhaps the US government is limiting not only it's internal filtering system to Only 50 Gateways, but is out to channel the rest of the world through Echelons as well

    Further information published by the US Air Force identifies the US Naval Security Group Station at Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico as a COMSAT interception site. Its mission is "to become the premier satellite communications processing and analysis field station". These and further documents concerning Echelon and COMSAT interception stations at Yakima, Sabana Seco (Puerto Rico), Misawa (Japan) and Guam have been published on the web.[20]
    Inside Echelon
    1. Re:Why Guam? by stryyker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Perhaps so they can have lower cost bandwidth to the rest of the world and connect to other carriers at Guam?

    2. Re:Why Guam? by mattMad · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why would Australia, already with very limited high cost bandwidth to the rest of the world, bother building out cable to the small remote isolated island of Guam? If you look at this map http://www1.alcatel-lucent.com/submarine/refs/Asian_Map_LR.pdf that a previous poster linked to you will see that Guam is already quite well connected (both to Asian countries and to the US) - so connecting Australia to Guam gives much more benefits than just being connected to Guam.
  3. An obvious ruse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This whole Guam Cable thing is clearly a front. Everyone knows they're really using the Cable survey as an excuse to search for Japanese War Gold :)

    Ok, I admit that everything I know about undersea cables I learnt from Neal Stephenson, but he was right about the undersea cable cutting war, wasn't he?

  4. Histroy uncovered? by iamsamed · · Score: 2, Interesting
    How many of you saw the article and the photo and hope that the undersea survey produces more pictures of sunken WWII stuff?

    Or has that area been completely mapped and photographed?

  5. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny

    Installing undersea cable: $188M

    Getting some dodgy sea captain to snag it with an anchor: a couple of hundred and a case of Scotch.

    Watching all the conspiracy loons on teh webz: priceless!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  6. PIPE did the 60-Day Data Center by miller60 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Many Slashdot readers may remember Pipe Networks from their effort to build a data center in 60 days, which also used a blog and webcam to provide a window into the process.

    --
    RichM
    Data Center Knowledge
  7. Re:Seems Cheap by m.ducharme · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How many kilometres of cable to you buy at a go?

    --
    Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
  8. What a silly idea by pocketfuzz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yet another example of government waste! Hasn't anyone told them that submarines already have propellers and therefore don't need a cable system? Just think of the expense of building one of these from the US to North Korea or any other place we'd like to have our subs. One cable cut and the entire fleet would be out of action! I say we should stick with the current "self-propulsion" paradigm until they perfect the underwater slingshot.

    --
    Bring on the asteroid