The Hidden Cables That Carry the Internet Across the Oceans
The Cables That Connect the World
Underneath a scrubby Spanish beach, a fiber-optic cable emerges from the sea and becomes the internet. This article explores the physical infrastructure that connects the world: the 1.5 million kilometers of submarine cables, how they are built, laid, and repaired, and who owns them. It reveals that a handful of companies dominate cable manufacturing, and that tech giants like Google and Meta are among the top owners.
We treat the internet as if it were air, ambient and ownerless, when in reality, however, it is the exact opposite.
- compsciphd
On this note, there is/was an apartment I'm semi looking at (in practice its just a bit out of my stretching ability) in my beach town that isn't quite first row to the sea, but one street back.
But the lot behind it (which would be across the street from the first row to the sea buildings has an empty lot that actually gives a decent sea view (through some hotels, but surprisingly not that blocked). so the question is why, is this lot empty? from my research it seems its not landing site for one of the major fiber networks and is built into an underground data center for the landing. So the assumption is that this is basically about as good as one can get that the lot wont be developed (at least in the semi near future) due to the difficulty of relocating the fiber and the security implications of building a residential building on top of it. Still just a bit out of my ability (which makes me a little sad) but cest la vie.
anyways just something I learned about the fiber optic networks that connect the world in my hunt for an apartment.
- bariumbitmap
In case you're wondering why the title and favicon keeps changing when the tab is in the background:
- cowthulhu
I was surprised at the high voltage required… but resistance loss scales with the square of amperage, so it makes sense that for long distance power transmission, you have to keep amperage low and voltage high.