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Microsoft and Facebook Just Built a 4,000-Mile Cable Across the Pacfic Ocean (popularmechanics.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Popular Mechanics:
Microsoft, Facebook and global telecommunication infrastructure company Telxius have completed the Marea subsea cable, the world's most technologically advanced undersea cable. The Marea crosses the Atlantic Ocean over 17,000 feet below the ocean's surface, connecting Virginia Beach with Bilbao, Spain. Over 4,000 miles (6,600 kilometers) long and weighing nearly 10.25 million pounds (4.65 million kilograms), the Marea can transmit up to 160 terabits of data per second, which Microsoft notes is "more than 16 million times faster than the average home internet connection, making it capable of streaming 71 million high-definition videos simultaneously."
The undersea cable -- about 1.5 times the diameter of a garden hose -- contains eight pairs of fiber optic cables encircled by copper, a protective layer of hard plastic, and then waterproof coating. Its 4,000-mile route had to avoid everything from earthquake zones to active volcanoes.
Cables under the Atlantic Ocean carry 55% more data than cables under the Pacific, Microsoft writes, adding that "the project highlights the increasing role of private companies in building the infrastructure of the future."
The undersea cable -- about 1.5 times the diameter of a garden hose -- contains eight pairs of fiber optic cables encircled by copper, a protective layer of hard plastic, and then waterproof coating. Its 4,000-mile route had to avoid everything from earthquake zones to active volcanoes.
Cables under the Atlantic Ocean carry 55% more data than cables under the Pacific, Microsoft writes, adding that "the project highlights the increasing role of private companies in building the infrastructure of the future."
NT
I guess the headline needs to be fixed.
Someone needs to read their own summary: this looks like the Atlantic Ocean, not the Pacific Ocean.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
These certainly are strange days. The Pacific is now in the Atlantic*. Next you'll be telling me that Cats are living with Dogs and that US is actually a reality show a la Truman.
How the fuck you get the Pacific I don't know. It's as if the last thing in the submission said "Pacific" and that's all the "editors" can remember - the last thing they saw.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Glad I took the time to read TFA. I would have been thoroughly confused given the headline and the summary text. Thanks for that.
Use a little common sense once in a while. --Book of Mooch Ch. 5 verse 14
Must be the new backbone of the adulterated internet Ajit Pai has dreamt about since he was a little lad.
Slashdot story title: Microsoft and Facebook Just Built a 4,000-Mile Cable Across the Pacfic Ocean
Slashdot story text: The Marea crosses the Atlantic Ocean over 17,000 feet below the ocean's surface, connecting Virginia Beach with Bilbao, Spain.The Marea crosses the Atlantic Ocean over 17,000 feet below the ocean's surface, connecting Virginia Beach with Bilbao, Spain.
Uhh ... is there some kind of quantum superposition going on with the the Earth's largest oceans now?
What is that in hogsheads?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Complaining about the "editors" is 28% of slashdot traffic. What is the incentive to change?
Holy fuck EditorDavid. This is a whole new low. You've officially descended Slashdot to the depth of editing not even seen on Breitbart.
ATLANTIC. PACIFIC. Seriously, you can't even get that fucking simple a fact straight?
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
And why no credit for the NSA? I'm sure they helped with the project as well...probably built a nice shiny facility at the US endpoint
Literally the second sentence in TFA is "The Marea crosses the Atlantic Ocean over 17,000 feet below the ocean's surface, connecting Virginia Beach with Bilbao, Spain."
News at 11
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Headline says Pacific, article says Atlantic
Only approved traffic will be allowed on the new cable. Anyone critical of Microsoft or Facebook will be banned from using it.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
as part of the PRISM program....
#Trump will make the Pacific Atlantic again and make Mexico pay for his ignorance.
...4,000-Mile Cable Across the Pacfic Ocean ... connecting Virginia Beach with Bilbao, Spain
Microsoft maps claims another victim!
Seriously, -5 SuperRedundant.
Microsoft and Facebook laid a giant cable across The Atlantic to keep them from posting any more mean things about them. This wasn't an accident, they did this pacifically because they heard bad things were going to be in the next issue.
I'm not sure how you guys got all confused about something so simple. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Seems odd to build new cables with such a low strand count-- is it just a function of the optical amplifiers?
= 4650 tonnes. Which would have been a lot easier for most people to grog straight away. Still, at least they didn't measure it in elephants tho I suppose it won't be long before submitters drop to that dumbed down level.
At least you're not forced to pay for Microsoft/Facebook's cable; if you don't like their policies, then build your own damn cable.
In contrast, a government cable would still suffer the same problems you cite:
Only, the problem is much worse: Government has a lot more tendrils in your life than either Facebook or Microsoft, and you're forced to pay for that Government cable.
"Private" is better. Always.
Nevermind the failure at geography. The whole damn headline is wrong. Neither Facebook nor Microsoft did anything other than write a big fat check to the telecom company that runs undersea cables. If Amazon and Apple were to have the driveways of their headquarters repaved, would the slashdot headline breathlessly scream "Amazon and Apple Build New Highway!" or something similarly retarded?
They did not do this out of altruism. They expect to make a handsome profit over selling access to it. I find it hard to get excited about corporate giants that innovate. I get more excited when the little guy achieves something big.
They also moved pacific ocean between USA and Europe.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'm sure they know what they did and why.
But how much of the cost was the work of laying the cable, and how much was making the cable,
and how much more would doubling the # of strands actually cost, for the same amount of ship work?
Holy Sh!t, EditorDavid - you either need more coffee, or more beer, or better weed (maybe all 3) - AND a $4.99 globe (with pencil sharpener) - to determine what the difference between PACIFIC and ATLANTIC mean to the REAL WORLD - - - - ooops, guess I forgot where I was posting, since /. does seem to make up it's OWN real world on occasion -lol-
I really, REALLY hope this was a spoofed sig, and not a post from one of /.'s REAL editors . . . . .
redneck geek
You'll never see a kick-starter that'll do this. People would rather tell other people what to do with their money, while avoiding spending their own.
I wonder if the NSA has tapped it yet.
Microsoft writes, adding that "the project highlights the increasing role of private companies in hobbling the infrastructure of the future."
Maybe that's part of the Atlantic ocean ?
How does "traffic" help Slashdot? I assume they have to pay for their bandwidth, and of course they have no source of income (we're all using uBlock Origin, right?).
More evidence of man-made "continental shift" and "ocean change". Unless the UN quickly acts, 97% of scientists think the Bering Sea will surround Tahiti in 15 years.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
"Private" is better. Always.
No it isn't, troll.
I don't respond to AC's.
Maybe it goes leftwards from the west coast all the way around to Spain?
I do not think it means what you think it means.
You know the NSA can't wait to tap into that. https://www.wired.com/2016/09/...
At least you're not forced to pay for Microsoft/Facebook's cable; if you don't like their policies, then build your own damn cable. ... you're forced to pay for that Government cable.
"Private" is better. Always.
I've been forced to pay for Microsoft's pre-loaded operating systems several times. That or drop out the the modern world by having no PC. You can avoid paying any government too - by dropping out the the modern world and living on a rock. There are still a number of isolated rocks in the sea that are unclaimed, and if that sounds too barren and windswept you can always build your own damned infrastucture on it.
not M$ or FB. They paid for it.
My neighbor paid a contractor to build an extension to his house.
But he didn't do so much as lift a fucking brick. It's his house, he paid for it but he did NOT "build" it.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Their have always been options when building/buying a PC, what you were forced to do is not be lazy by buying off the shelf. You made a choice, a poor one, but a choice none the less.
title should be Atlantic Ocean and not Pacific Ocean. There is a difference.
One of my favorite articles of all time from any source is the piece Neal Stephenson wrote for Wired about the Fiber Optic Link (around the) Globe, or FLAG, in 1996.
https://www.wired.com/1996/12/...
It went from England to Japan (about 28,000 km/17,500 miles) and carried "just under 8 Gbps of actual throughput". 21 years later, this new cable has TWENTY THOUSAND times the bandwidth. Nice.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
How? One of the biggest on the whole planet run south to north smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean separating the North American Plate from the Eurasian You may even have heard of it. Its called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The two plates are continuously pulling apart from each other, generating earthquakes all the time. You lay cable across the Atlantic west to east, you have to cross it
You know a millenial wrote the headline if it contains the word "just" or "someone".
Journalism has taken a nosedive in the last five-years.
Have you wondered why it's always more expense to build a PC these days than buy one?
The crapware they load on the pre-loaded Windows OS more than pays for the OS license.
That bundled Windows is actually making your PC cheaper.
... by way of NSA HQ in Maryland.
Well I never been to Spain But I kinda like the music Say the ladies are insane there And they sure know how to use it They don't abuse it Never gonna lose it I can't refuse it (you either have to be OLD like me, or love that music to know the group)
And of course, the N$A will get a copy. Isn't life wonderful?
Hey, did anyone notice that they got the wrong ocean in the title yet?
Tunneled it Pacific over or under Atlantic just like ipv6 over ipv4?
I live in VB. Where is the facility located?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
To connect Virginia to Spain via the Pacific
The Top secret 6 strands of Fiber Optic cable in there that is only available to certain agencies.
3rd worst post on Slashdot nominee.
With headlines like this staying uncorrected on a 'smart persons' web site for hours, it is easy to see how just a little fake news could sway an election using the less-informed public.
Is the usage of obscure units some kind of inside joke that I'm unaware of. Here are all the units used in the summary:
* Over 17,000 feet below the ocean's surface [should be in meters]
* Over 4,000 miles (6,600 kilometers) long [Thank you for having a proper unit. But WTF is with the precision. Weight is given at least with three significant numbers.]
* weighing nearly 10.25 million pounds (4.65 million kilograms) [Million kilograms. Really? How about tons?]
* 160 terabits of data per second / more than 16 million times faster than the average home internet connection / streaming 71 million high-definition videos
* 1.5 times the diameter of a garden hose [Does this even deserve a comment?]
I meant "best".
... then again it's not like our government let us say what's on our mind either anyway ..
flopsquad wins Nobel Prize for /. troll
I think the summary was pretty clear. The Marea cable is a highly advanced undersea cable that connects West Virginia Beach to Billings, Montana, crossing the Indian Ocean at a depth of 16,000mi (7km). It weighs a ton (1.09 nautical tons) and has the capacity to transmit 180 tibibytes of data across the Arctic Ocean—roughly equivalent to 1 billion "likes", 64 million unrequested Windows 10 updates, 14,000 librarians of congress, or infinity SMS messages. Geez RTFS.
that's just how good a troll it is
So two of the world's most evil companies now control the largest data pipe between continents. This is very scary for Freedom.
...to start cooking the ocean? Because we need more hurricanes.
The cable is not *faster* than a "Home Internet Connection".
In actual fact, it is either slower or the same speed. The propagation speed of electrons in copper wire is about 99% of the speed of light (for good annealed copper conductors -- range 50% to 99% depending on conductor quality and frequency), whereas the propagation of photons in optical fiber is about 70% of the speed of light. The "electron" which goes "into" the conductor is not the same one that comes out the other end. It is like a hose jam packed full of marbles. When you "stuff" on in one end, one pops out the other end almost immediately. Conversely, an optical fiber is like an empty hose. When you stuff a marble in one end you have to wait for it to travel all the way to the other end.
So, if your "Home Internet Connection" has fiber based links, the "speed" is exactly the same. If it is purely copper then is is likely "faster".
What they mean is that the "bandwidth" is 16 million times greater than a "Home Internet Connection".
Of course, a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet full of magnetic tape far surpasses the "bandwidth" of the fiber cable, although the "speed" is much slower. A station wagon full of floppy disks has more "bandwidth" than your "Home Internet Connection" but also has a much lower "speed".
"Speed" and "Bandwidth" are not the same thing!
I do build my own PCs these days, but I have bought ones too. In the UK you need to go a long way to find a PC not pre-loaded with Windows.
The crapware they load on the pre-loaded Windows OS more than pays for the OS license.
That bundled Windows is actually making your PC cheaper.
I am well aware of that. But, cheaper or not, MS and Gates still receive some money from me. I prefer to pay more to avoid that, and the crap & spy-ware.