Slashdot Mirror


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."

4 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Only Approved Traffic by FrankHaynes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  2. TELXIUS built the fucking cable by haruchai · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  3. FLAG by sootman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  4. Fake news for nerds by whoda · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.