Submarine communications cable
Encyclopedia
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
signals across stretches of ocean.
The first submarine communications cables carried telegraphy
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
traffic. Subsequent generations of cables carried first telephony
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
traffic, then data communications traffic. All modern cables use optical fiber
Optical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
technology to carry digital payloads, which are then used to carry telephone traffic as well as Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and private data traffic. They are typically 69 millimetres (2.7 in) in diameter and weigh around 10 kilograms per metre (7 lb/ft), although thinner and lighter cables are used for deep-water sections.
As of 2010, submarine cables link all the world's continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
s except Antarctica.
Trials
After William CookeWilliam Fothergill Cooke
Sir William Fothergill Cooke was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837...
and Charles Wheatstone
Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS , was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope , and the Playfair cipher...
had introduced their working telegraph
Telegraphy
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...
in 1839, the idea of a submarine line across the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
began to be thought of as a possible triumph of the future. Samuel Morse proclaimed his faith in it as early as the year 1840, and in 1842 he submerged a wire, insulated with tarred hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...
and India rubber, in the water of New York Harbor
New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...
, and telegraphed through it. The following autumn Wheatstone performed a similar experiment in Swansea Bay
Swansea Bay
Swansea Bay is a bay on the Bristol Channel on the South Wales coast. Places on the bay include Mumbles, Swansea and Port Talbot. The River Neath, River Tawe, River Afan and Blackpill stream flow into the bay....
. A good insulator to cover the wire and prevent the electric current from leaking into the water was necessary for the success of a long submarine line. India rubber had been tried by Moritz von Jacobi, the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n electrical engineer, as far back as the early 19th century.
Another insulating gum which could be melted by heat and readily applied to wire made its appearance in 1842. Gutta-percha
Gutta-percha
Gutta-percha is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to the Malay Peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands. The same term is used to refer to an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees, particularly from the species...
, the adhesive juice of the Palaquium gutta tree, was introduced to Europe by William Montgomerie, a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
in the service of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. Twenty years earlier he had seen whips made of it in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, and he believed that it would be useful in the fabrication of surgical apparatus. Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
and Wheatstone soon discovered the merits of gutta-percha as an insulator, and in 1845 the latter suggested that it should be employed to cover the wire which was proposed to be laid from Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
to Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
. It was tried on a wire laid across the Rhine between Deutz
Cologne-Deutz
Cologne-Deutz, often just Deutz, is an inner city part of Cologne, Germany and a formerly independent town.Lufthansa's headquarters are in Deutz.-History:...
and Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
. In 1849 C.V. Walker, electrician to the South Eastern Railway
South Eastern Railway (UK)
The South Eastern Railway was a railway company in south-eastern England from 1836 until 1922. The company was formed to construct a route from London to Dover. Branch lines were later opened to Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Canterbury and other places in Kent...
, submerged a wire coated with gutta-percha along the coast off Dover.
The first commercial cables
In August 1850, John Watkins BrettJohn Watkins Brett
John Watkins Brett , was a telegraphic engineer.Brett was the son of a cabinetmaker, William Brett of Bristol, and was born in that city in 1805. Brett has been styled, with apparent justice, the founder of submarine telegraphy. The idea of transmitting electricity through submerged cables is said...
's Anglo-French Telegraph Company laid the first line across the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. It was simply a copper wire coated with gutta-percha
Gutta-percha
Gutta-percha is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to the Malay Peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands. The same term is used to refer to an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees, particularly from the species...
, without any other protection. The experiment served to keep alive the concession, and the next year, on November 13, 1851, a protected core, or true cable, was laid from a government hulk, the Blazer, which was towed across the Channel. The next year, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
were linked together. In 1852, a cable laid by the Submarine Telegraph Company linked London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
for the first time. In May, 1853, England was joined to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
by a cable across the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, from Orford Ness
Orford Ness
Orford Ness is a cuspate foreland shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in Great Britain, linked to the mainland at Aldeburgh and stretching along the coast to Orford and down to North Wier Point, opposite Shingle Street. It is divided from the mainland by the River Alde, and was formed by longshore...
to The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
. It was laid by the Monarch, a paddle steamer
Paddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
which had been fitted for the work.
Transatlantic telegraph cable
The first attempt at laying a transatlantic telegraph cableTransatlantic telegraph cable
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from , Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable connected North America...
was promoted by Cyrus West Field
Cyrus West Field
Cyrus West Field was an American businessman and financier who, along with other entrepreneurs, created the Atlantic Telegraph Company and laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858.-Life and career:...
, who persuaded British industrialists to fund and lay one in 1858. However, the technology of the day was not capable of supporting the project; it was plagued with problems from the outset, and was in operation for only a month. Subsequent attempts in 1865 and 1866 with the world's largest steamship, the SS Great Eastern
SS Great Eastern
SS Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the...
, used a more advanced technology and produced the first successful transatlantic cable. The Great Eastern later went on to lay the first cable reaching to India from Aden, Yemen, in 1870.
British dominance of early cable
From the 1850s until 1911, British submarine cable systems dominated the most important market, the North Atlantic Ocean. The British had both supply side and demand side advantages. In terms of supply, Britain had entrepreneurs willing to put forth enormous amounts of capital necessary to build, lay and maintain these cables. In terms of demand, the vast colonial empire Britain held led to business for the cable companies from news agencies, trading and shipping companies, and the British government. Many of Britain’s colonies had significant populations of European settlers, making news about them of interest to the general public in the home country.The submarine cables were an economic boon to trade companies because owners of ships could communicate with captains when they reached their destination on the other side of the ocean and even give directions as to where to go next to pick up more cargo based on reported pricing and supply information. The British government had obvious uses for the cables in maintaining administrative communications with governors throughout its empire as well as in engaging other nations diplomatically and communicating with its military units in wartime. Location of Britain’s territory was also an advantage as it possessed both Ireland and Newfoundland, making for the shortest route across the Atlantic Ocean (reducing cost significantly).
A few facts put this dominance of the industry in perspective. In 1896, there were thirty cable laying ships in the world and twenty-four of them were owned by British companies. In 1892, British companies owned and operated two-thirds of the world’s cables and by 1923 their share was still 42.7 percent.
Cable to India, Singapore, Far East and Australasia
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, India (then known as Bombay) provided a crucial link to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
. In 1870 Bombay was linked to London via submarine cable in a combined operation by four cable companies, at the behest of the British Government. In 1872 these four companies were combined to form the mammoth globespanning Eastern Telegraph Company, owned by John Pender
John Pender
Sir John Pender , British Submarine communications cable pioneer, was born in the Vale of Leven, Scotland, and after attending school in Glasgow became a successful merchant in textile fabrics in that city and in Manchester; where he had a warehouse in Peter street near The Great Northern Warehouse...
. A spin-off from Eastern Telegraph Company was a second sister company, the Eastern Extension, China and Australasia Telegraph Company, commonly known simply as "the Extension". In 1872, Australia was linked by cable to Bombay via Singapore and China and in 1876 the cable linked the British Empire from London to New Zealand.
Submarine cable across the Pacific
This was completed in 1902–03, linking the US mainland to Hawaii in 1902 and Guam to the Philippines in 1903. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji were also linked in 1902.Decades later, the North Pacific Cable system
NPC (cable system)
NPC is a submarine telecommunications cable system in the North Pacific Ocean linking the USA and Japan.It has landing points in:#Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan#Pacific City, Tillamook County, Oregon, USA...
was the first regenerative (repeater
Repeater
A repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...
ed) system to completely cross the Pacific from the US mainland to Japan. The US portion of NPC was manufactured in Portland, Oregon, from 1989–1991 at STC Submarine Systems, and later Alcatel Submarine Networks. The system was laid by Cable & Wireless Marine on the CS Cable Venture in 1991.
Construction
Transatlantic cables of the 19th century consisted of an outer layer of iron and later steel wire, wrapping India rubber, wrapping gutta-percha, which surrounded a multi-stranded copper wire at the core. The portions closest to each shore landing had additional protective armor wires. Gutta-perchaGutta-percha
Gutta-percha is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to the Malay Peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands. The same term is used to refer to an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees, particularly from the species...
, a natural polymer similar to rubber, had nearly ideal properties for insulating submarine cables, with the exception of a rather high dielectric
Dielectric
A dielectric is an electrical insulator that can be polarized by an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material, as in a conductor, but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric...
constant which made cable capacitance
Capacitance
In electromagnetism and electronics, capacitance is the ability of a capacitor to store energy in an electric field. Capacitance is also a measure of the amount of electric potential energy stored for a given electric potential. A common form of energy storage device is a parallel-plate capacitor...
high. Gutta-percha was not replaced as a cable insulation until polyethylene
Polyethylene
Polyethylene or polythene is the most widely used plastic, with an annual production of approximately 80 million metric tons...
was introduced in the 1930s. In the 1920s, the American military experimented with rubber-insulated cables as an alternative to gutta-percha, since American interests controlled significant supplies of rubber but no gutta-percha manufacturers.
Bandwidth problems
Early long-distance submarine telegraph cables exhibited formidable electrical problems. Unlike modern cables, the technology of the 19th century did not allow for in-line repeaterRepeater
A repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...
amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
s in the cable. Large voltage
Voltage
Voltage, otherwise known as electrical potential difference or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points — or the difference in electric potential energy per unit charge between two points...
s were used to attempt to overcome the electrical resistance
Electrical resistance
The electrical resistance of an electrical element is the opposition to the passage of an electric current through that element; the inverse quantity is electrical conductance, the ease at which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical...
of their tremendous length but the cables' distributed capacitance
Capacitance
In electromagnetism and electronics, capacitance is the ability of a capacitor to store energy in an electric field. Capacitance is also a measure of the amount of electric potential energy stored for a given electric potential. A common form of energy storage device is a parallel-plate capacitor...
and inductance
Inductance
In electromagnetism and electronics, inductance is the ability of an inductor to store energy in a magnetic field. Inductors generate an opposing voltage proportional to the rate of change in current in a circuit...
combined to distort the telegraph pulses in the line, reducing the cable's bandwidth
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the difference between the upper and lower frequencies in a contiguous set of frequencies. It is typically measured in hertz, and may sometimes refer to passband bandwidth, sometimes to baseband bandwidth, depending on context...
, severely limiting the data rate
Data rate
Data rate can refer to:* Bit rate, or data transfer rate* Data signaling rate* Data rate units-See also:* Baud rate* Channel capacity* Throughput* Bandwidth everything in this page is falsified...
for telegraph operation to 10-12 words per minute.
As early as 1823, Francis Ronalds had observed that electric signals were retarded in passing through an insulated wire or core laid underground, and the same effect was noticed by Latimer Clark (1853) on cores immersed in water, and particularly on the lengthy cable between England and The Hague. Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
showed that the effect was caused by capacitance between the wire and the earth
Ground (electricity)
In electrical engineering, ground or earth may be the reference point in an electrical circuit from which other voltages are measured, or a common return path for electric current, or a direct physical connection to the Earth....
(or water) surrounding it. Faraday had noted that when a wire is charged from a battery (for example when pressing a telegraph key), the electric charge
Electric charge
Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...
in the wire induces an opposite charge in the water as it travels along. In 1831, Faraday described this effect in what is now referred to as Faraday's law of induction
Faraday's law of induction
Faraday's law of induction dates from the 1830s, and is a basic law of electromagnetism relating to the operating principles of transformers, inductors, and many types of electrical motors and generators...
. As the two charges attract each other, the exciting charge is retarded. The core acts as a capacitor
Capacitor
A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors separated by a dielectric ; for example, one common construction consists of metal foils separated...
distributed along the length of the cable which, coupled with the resistance and inductance
Inductance
In electromagnetism and electronics, inductance is the ability of an inductor to store energy in a magnetic field. Inductors generate an opposing voltage proportional to the rate of change in current in a circuit...
of the cable limits the speed at which a signal travels through the conductor of the cable.
Early cable designs failed to analyze these effects correctly. Famously, E.O.W. Whitehouse had dismissed the problems and insisted that a transatlantic cable was feasible. When he subsequently became electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company
Atlantic Telegraph Company
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed in 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link....
he became involved in a public dispute with William Thomson
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
. Whitehouse believed that, with enough voltage, any cable could be driven. Because of the excessive voltages recommended by Whitehouse, Cyrus West Field's first transatlantic cable never worked reliably, and eventually short circuit
Short circuit
A short circuit in an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path, often where essentially no electrical impedance is encountered....
ed to the ocean when Whitehouse increased the voltage beyond the cable design limit.
Thomson designed a complex electric-field generator that minimized current by resonating
Resonance
In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at a greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies...
the cable, and a sensitive light-beam mirror galvanometer
Mirror galvanometer
thumb|right|200px|A mirror galvanometerA mirror galvanometer is a mechanical meter that senses electric current, except that instead of moving a needle, it moves a mirror. The mirror reflects a beam of light, which projects onto a meter, and acts as a long, weightless, massless pointer...
for detecting the faint telegraph signals. Thomson became wealthy on the royalties of these, and several related inventions. Thomson was elevated to Lord Kelvin for his contributions in this area, chiefly an accurate mathematical model
Mathematical model
A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used not only in the natural sciences and engineering disciplines A mathematical model is a...
of the cable, which permitted design of the equipment for accurate telegraphy. The effects of atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network . The Earth's surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit...
and the geomagnetic field on submarine cables also motivated many of the early polar expeditions
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
.
Thomson had produced a mathematical analysis of propagation of electrical signals into telegraph cables based on their capacitance and resistance, but since long submarine cables operated at slow rates, he did not include the effects of inductance. By the 1890s, Oliver Heaviside
Oliver Heaviside
Oliver Heaviside was a self-taught English electrical engineer, mathematician, and physicist who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, invented mathematical techniques to the solution of differential equations , reformulated Maxwell's field equations in terms of electric and...
had produced the modern general form of the telegrapher's equations which included the effects of inductance and which were essential to extending the theory of transmission line
Transmission line
In communications and electronic engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable designed to carry alternating current of radio frequency, that is, currents with a frequency high enough that its wave nature must be taken into account...
s to higher frequencies required for high-speed data and voice.
Transatlantic telephony
While laying a transatlantic telephone cable was seriously considered from the 1920s, a number of technological advances were required for cost-efficient telecommunications that did not arrive until the 1940s. A first attempt to lay a pupinized telephone cable failed in the early 1930s due to the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
In 1942, Siemens Brothers
Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens was a German born engineer who for most of his life worked in Britain and later became a British subject.-Biography:...
of New Charlton
New Charlton
New Charlton is the area along the south bank of the River Thames at Charlton, London, and forms part of the London Borough of Greenwich. It was historically primarily an industrial zone.-History:...
, London in conjunction with the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
National Physical Laboratory
National Physical Laboratory, UK
The National Physical Laboratory is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington, London, England. It is the largest applied physics organisation in the UK.-Description:...
, adapted submarine communications cable technology to create the world's first submarine oil pipeline in Operation Pluto
Operation Pluto
Operation Pluto was a World War II operation by British scientists, oil companies and armed forces to construct undersea oil pipelines under the English Channel between England and France. The scheme was developed by Arthur Hartley, chief engineer with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
TAT-1
TAT-1
TAT-1 was the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system. It was laid between Gallanach Bay, near Oban, Scotland and Clarenville, Newfoundland between 1955 and 1956. It was inaugurated on September 25, 1956, initially carrying 36 telephone channels.-History:The first transatlantic...
(Transatlantic No. 1) was the first transatlantic telephone cable
Transatlantic telephone cable
A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable running under the Atlantic Ocean. All modern cables use fibre optic technology....
system. Between 1955 and 1956, cable was laid between Gallanach Bay, near Oban
Oban
Oban Oban Oban ( is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. It has a total resident population of 8,120. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William and during the tourist season the town can be crowded by up to 25,000 people. Oban...
, Scotland and Clarenville, Newfoundland and Labrador
Clarenville, Newfoundland and Labrador
Clarenville is a Canadian town on the east coast of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Clarenville was incorporated in 1951 and is located in the Shoal Harbour valley fronting an arm of the Atlantic Ocean called Random Sound....
. It was inaugurated on September 25, 1956, initially carrying 36 telephone channels.
In the 1960s, transoceanic cables were coaxial cable
Coaxial cable
Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...
s that transmitted frequency-multiplexed voiceband signals
Frequency-division multiplexing
Frequency-division multiplexing is a form of signal multiplexing which involves assigning non-overlapping frequency ranges to different signals or to each "user" of a medium.- Telephone :...
. A high voltage direct current on the inner conductor powered the repeaters. The first-generation repeaters are among the most reliable vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
amplifiers ever designed. Later ones were transistorized. Many of these cables are still usable, but abandoned because their capacity is too small to be commercially viable. Some have been used as scientific instruments to measure earthquake waves and other geomagnetic events.
Optical telephone cables
In the 1980s, fiber optic cablesOptical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
were developed. The first transatlantic telephone cable to use optical fiber was TAT-8
TAT-8
TAT-8 was the 8th transatlantic telecommunications cable,initially carrying 40,000 telephone circuits between USA, England and France. It was constructed in 1988 by a consortium of companies led by AT&T, France Telecom, and British Telecom...
, which went into operation in 1988. A fiber-optic cable comprises multiple pairs of fibers. Each pair has one fiber in each direction. TAT-8 had two operational pairs and one backup pair.
Modern optical fiber repeaters use a solid-state optical amplifier
Optical amplifier
An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback from the cavity is suppressed...
, usually an Erbium-doped fiber amplifier. Each repeater contains separate equipment for each fiber. These comprise signal reforming, error measurement and controls. A solid-state laser dispatches the signal into the next length of fiber. The solid-state laser excites a short length of doped fiber that itself acts as a laser amplifier. As the light passes through the fiber, it is amplified. This system also permits wavelength-division multiplexing
Wavelength-division multiplexing
In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light...
, which dramatically increases the capacity of the fiber.
Repeaters are powered by a constant direct current passed down the conductor near the center of the cable, so all repeaters in a cable are in series. Power feed equipment is installed at the terminal stations. Typically both ends share the current generation with one end providing a positive voltage and the other a negative voltage. A virtual earth
Virtual ground
Virtual ground is a node of the circuit that is maintained at a steady reference potential, without being connected directly to the reference potential...
point exists roughly half way along the cable under normal operation. The amplifiers or repeaters derive their power from the potential difference drop across them.
The optic fiber used in undersea cables is chosen for its exceptional clarity, permitting runs of more than 100 kilometers between repeaters to minimize the number of amplifiers and the distortion they cause.
The rising demand for these fiber-optic cables outpaced the capacity of providers such as AT&T. Having to shift traffic to satellites resulted in poorer quality signals. To address this issue, AT&T had to improve its cable laying abilities. It invested $100 million in producing two specialized fiber-optic cable laying vessels. These included laboratories in the ships for splicing cable together and testing its electrical properties. Such field monitoring is important because the glass of fiber-optic cable is less malleable than the previous copper cable that had been used. The ships are further equipped with special additional propellers that increase maneuverability. This capability is important because fiber-optic cable must be laid out straight from the stern (another factor copper cable laying ships did not have to contend with).
Originally, submarine cables were simple point-to-point connections. With the development of submarine branching unit
Submarine Branching Unit
A submarine branching unit is a piece of equipment used in submarine telecommunications cable systems to allow the cable to split to serve more than one destination...
s (SBUs), more than one destination could be served by a single cable system. Modern cable systems now usually have their fibers arranged in a self-healing ring
Self-healing ring
A self-healing ring, or SHR, is a telecommunications term for loop network topology, a common configuration in telecommunications transmission systems. Like roadway and water distribution systems, a loop or ring is used to provide redundancy...
to increase their redundancy, with the submarine sections following different paths on the ocean floor. One driver for this development was that the capacity of cable systems had become so large that it was not possible to completely back-up a cable system with satellite capacity, so it became necessary to provide sufficient terrestrial back-up capability. Not all telecommunications organizations wish to take advantage of this capability, so modern cable systems may have dual landing point
Cable landing point
A cable landing point is the location where a submarine or other underwater cable makes landfall. The term is most often used for the landfall points of submarine telecommunications cables and submarine power cables. The landing will either be direct or via a branch from a main cable using a...
s in some countries (where back-up capability is required) and only single landing points in other countries where back-up capability is either not required, the capacity to the country is small enough to be backed up by other means, or having back-up is regarded as too expensive.
A further redundant-path development over and above the self-healing rings approach is the "Mesh Network" whereby fast switching equipment is used to transfer services between network paths with little to no effect on higher-level protocols if a path becomes inoperable. As more paths become available to use between two points, the less likely it is that one or two simultaneous failures will prevent end-to-end service.
Importance of submarine cables
As of 2006, overseas satellite links accounted for only 1 percent of international traffic, while the remainder was carried by undersea cable. The reliability of submarine cables is high, especially when (as noted above), multiple paths are available in the event of a cable break. Also, the total carrying capacity of submarine cables is in the terabits per second while satellites typically offer only megabits per second and display higher latencyLatency (engineering)
Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
. However, a typical multi-terabit, transoceanic submarine cable system costs several hundred million dollars to construct.
As a result of these cables' cost and usefulness they are highly valued not only by the corporations building and operating them for profit, but also by national governments. For instance, the Australian government considers its submarine cable systems to be “vital to the national economy.” Accordingly, the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Australian Communications and Media Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is an Australian government statutory authority within the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio...
(ACMA) has created protection zones that restrict activities that could potentially damage cables linking Australia to the rest of the world. The ACMA also regulates all projects to install new submarine cables.
Investment in and financing of submarine cables
Almost all fiber optic cables from TAT-8 in 1988 until approximately 1997 were constructed by "consortia" of operators. For example, TAT-8 counted 35 participants including most major international carriers at the time such as AT&TAT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
. Two privately-financed, non-consortium cables were constructed in the late-1990s, which preceded a massive, speculative rush to construct privately-financed cables that peaked in more than $22 billion worth of investment between 1999 and 2001. This was followed by the bankruptcy and reorganization of cable operators such as Global Crossing
Global Crossing
Global Crossing Limited was a telecommunications company that provides computer networking services worldwide. It maintained a large backbone and offered transit and peering links, VPN, leased lines, audio and video conferencing, long distance telephone, managed services, dialup, colocation and...
, 360networks, FLAG, Worldcom, and Asia Global Crossing.
There has been an increasing tendency in recent years to expand submarine cable in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
(the previous bias always having been to lay communications cable across the Atlantic Ocean which separates the United States and Europe). For example, between 1998 and 2003, approximately 70% of undersea fiber-optic cable was laid in the Pacific. This is in part a response to the emerging significance of Asian markets in the global economy.
Although much of the investment in submarine cables has been directed toward developed markets such as the transatlantic and transpacific routes, in recent years there has been an increased effort to expand the submarine cable network to serve the developing world. For instance, in July 2009 an underwater fiber optic cable line plugged East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
into the broader Internet. The company that provided this new cable was SEACOM, which is 75% owned by Africans. The project is based on the hope that new information technology will reduce the cost of doing business in Africa and between Africa and other international parties. Still, the project was delayed by a month due to increased piracy
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
along the coast, a reminder that the developing world faces other struggles that new technologies such as this may not necessarily solve.
Out of range
Antarctica is the only continent yet to be reached by a submarine telecommunications cable. All phone, video, and e-mail traffic must be relayed to the rest of the world via satelliteSatellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
, which is still quite unreliable. Bases on the continent itself are able to communicate with one another via radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, but this is only a local network. To be a viable alternative, the fiber-optic cable must be able to withstand temperatures of −80˚ C as well as massive strain from ice flowing up to 10 meters per year. Thus, plugging into the larger Internet backbone with the high bandwidth afforded by fiber-optic cable is still an as yet infeasible economic and technical challenge in the Antarctic.
Cable repair
Cables can be broken by fishing trawlersTrawling
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net that is used for trawling is called a trawl....
, anchors, earthquakes, turbidity current
Turbidity current
A turbidity current is a current of rapidly moving, sediment-laden water moving down a slope through water, or another fluid. The current moves because it has a higher density and turbidity than the fluid through which it flows...
s and even shark bites. Based on surveying breaks in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, it was found that between 1959 and 1996 less than 9% were due to natural events. In response to this self-imposed threat to the communications network, the practice of cable burial has developed. The average incidence of cable faults was 3.7 per 1,000 km per year from 1959 to 1979. That rate was reduced to 0.44 faults per 1,000 km per year after 1985, due to widespread burial of cable starting in 1980. Still, cable breaks are by no means a thing of the past, with more than 50 repairs a year in the Atlantic alone, and significant breaks in 2006, 2008
2008 submarine cable disruption
2008 submarine cable disruption refers to three separate incidents of major damage to submarine optical cables. The first incident caused damage involving up to five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East from 23 January to 4 February 2008,...
and 2009.
The propensity for fishing trawler nets to cause cable faults may well have been exploited during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. For example, in February 1959 a series of 12 breaks occurred in five American trans-Atlantic communications cables. In response, a United States naval vessel, the U.S.S. Roy O. Hale
USS Roy O. Hale (DE-336)
USS Roy O. Hale was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and provided destroyer escort protection against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys...
detained and investigated the Soviet trawler Novorosiysk. A review of the ship’s log indicated it had been in the region of each of the cables when they broke. Broken sections of cable were also found on the deck of the Novorosiysk. It appeared that the cables had been dragged along by the ship’s nets, and then cut once they were pulled up onto the deck in order to release the nets. The Soviet Union’s stance on the investigation was that it was unjustified, but the United States cited the Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables
Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables
The Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables occurred in 1884. Signatories of the agreement reached included Great Britain, Argentina, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, The Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, The...
of 1884 to which Russia had been committed (prior to the formation of the Soviet Union) as evidence of violation of international protocol.
Shore stations can locate a break in a cable by electrical measurements, such as through spread-spectrum time-domain reflectometry
Spread-spectrum time-domain reflectometry
Spread-spectrum time-domain reflectometry is a measurement technique to identify faults, usually in electrical wires, by observing reflected spread spectrum signals. SSTDR is a type of time-domain reflectometry that can be advantageous to other systems due to the ability to use SSTDR in high-noise...
(SSTDR). SSTDR is a type of time-domain reflectometry that can be used in live environments very quickly. Presently SSTDR can collect a complete data set in 20ms. Spread spectrum signals are sent down the wire and then the reflected signal is observed. It is then correlated with the copy of the sent signal and mathematical algorithms are applied to the shape and timing of the signals to locate the break.
A cable repair ship will be sent to the location to drop a marker buoy near the break. Several types of grapples
Grapple (tool)
A grapple is a hook or claw used to catch or hold something. A ship's anchor is a type of grapple, especially the "grapnel" anchor.A throwing grapple is a multi-pronged hook that is tied to a rope and thrown to catch a grip, as on a parapet or branch of a tree...
are used depending on the situation. If the sea bed in question is sandy, a grapple with rigid prongs is used to plough under the surface and catch the cable. If the cable is on a rocky sea surface, the grapple is more flexible, with hooks along its length so that it can adjust to the changing surface. In especially deep water, the cable may not be strong enough to lift as a single unit, so a special grapple that cuts the cable soon after it has been hooked is used and only one length of cable is brought to the surface at a time, whereupon a new section is spliced in. The repaired cable is longer than the original, so the excess is deliberately laid in a 'U' shape on the seabed. A submersible
Submersible
A submersible is a small vehicle designed to operate underwater. The term submersible is often used to differentiate from other underwater vehicles known as submarines, in that a submarine is a fully autonomous craft, capable of renewing its own power and breathing air, whereas a submersible is...
can be used to repair cables that lie in shallower waters.
A number of ports near important cable routes became homes to specialised cable repair ships. Halifax, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
was home to a half dozen such vessels for most of the 20th century including long-lived vessels such as the CS Cyrus West Field, CS Minia and CS Mackay-Bennett. The latter two were contracted to recover victims from the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The crews of these vessels developed many new techniques and devices to repair and improve cable laying, such as the "plough
Pipe-and-cable-laying plough
A pipe-and-cable-laying plough is a trenchless method to bury cables or pipes.The machinery is a form of a subsoiler with a single blade. It is used to lay buried services of virtually any description, for drainage, water, electricity, telecommunications, gas supply etc....
".
Intelligence gathering
Underwater cables, which cannot be kept under constant surveillance, have tempted intelligence-gathering organizations since the late 19th century. Frequently at the beginning of wars nations have cut the cables of the other sides in order to shape the information flows into cables that were being monitored. The most ambitious efforts occurred in World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, when British and German forces systematically attempted to destroy the others' worldwide communications systems by cutting their cables with surface ships or submarines. During the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
and National Security Agency
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
(NSA) succeeded in placing wire taps on Soviet underwater communication lines in Operation Ivy Bells
Operation Ivy Bells
Operation Ivy Bells was a joint United States Navy, CIA and National Security Agency mission whose objective was to place wire taps on Soviet underwater communication lines during the Cold War.-History:...
.
Environmental impact
The main point of interaction of cables with marine life is in the benthic zoneBenthic zone
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean or a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. Organisms living in this zone are called benthos. They generally live in close relationship with the substrate bottom; many such...
of the oceans where the majority of cable lies. Recent studies (in 2003 and 2006) have indicated that cables pose minimal impacts on life in these environments. In sampling sediment cores around cables and in areas removed from cables, there were few statistically significant differences in organism diversity or abundance. The main difference was that the cables provided an attachment point for anemones that typically could not grow in soft sediment areas. Data from 1877 to 1955 showed a total of 16 cable faults caused by the entanglement of various whales, but such deadly entanglements have entirely ceased after the transition from telegraph cables to coaxial cables and then fiber-optic cables (the new cables are better designed in terms of torsional balance so that they have less of a tendency to coil).
Notable events
The Newfoundland earthquake of 19291929 Grand Banks earthquake
The 1929 Grand Banks earthquake, also called the Laurentian Slope earthquake and the South Shore Disaster, was a magnitude 7.2 earthquake that occurred on November 18, 1929 in the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Laurentian Slope Seismic Zone.The earthquake was centred on...
broke a series of trans-Atlantic cables by triggering a massive undersea mudslide. The sequence of breaks helped scientists chart the progress of the mudslide.
In July 2005, a portion of the SEA-ME-WE 3
SEA-ME-WE 3 (cable system)
SEA-ME-WE 3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 is an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions and is the longest in the world, completed in late 2000. It is operated by India's Tata Communications and 92 other investors from the telecom industry...
submarine cable located 35 kilometres (21.7 mi) south of Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
that provided Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
's major outer communications became defective, disrupting almost all of Pakistan's communications with the rest of the world, and affecting approximately 10 million Internet users.
The 2006 Hengchun earthquake
2006 Hengchun earthquake
The 2006 Hengchun earthquake occurred on Tuesday December 26, 2006 at 12:25 UTC , with an epicenter off the southwest coast of Taiwan, approximately 22.8 km west southwest of Hengchun, Pingtung County, Taiwan, with an exact hypocenter 21.9 km deep in the Luzon Strait , which connects the...
on December 26, 2006 rendered numerous cables between Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
and Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
inoperable.
In March, 2007, pirates
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
stole an 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) section of the T-V-H
T-V-H (cable system)
T-V-H is a submarine telecommunications cable system in the South China Sea linking Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.It has landing points in:*Sri Racha, Chonburi Province, Thailand...
submarine cable that connected Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, affecting Vietnam's Internet users with far slower speeds. The thieves attempted to sell the 100 tons of cable as scrap.
The 2008 submarine cable disruption
2008 submarine cable disruption
2008 submarine cable disruption refers to three separate incidents of major damage to submarine optical cables. The first incident caused damage involving up to five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East from 23 January to 4 February 2008,...
was a series of cable outages, two of the three Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
cables, two disruptions in the Persian Gulf, and one in Malaysia. It caused massive communications disruptions to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
.
In April 2010 the undersea cable SEA-ME-WE 4
SEA-ME-WE 4 (cable system)
South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France...
was under an outage the South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) submarine communications cable system, which connects South East Asia and Europe, was reportedly cut in three places, off Palermo, Italy.
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
damaged a number of undersea cables that make landings in Japan, including:
- APCN-2APCN 2 (cable system)APCN 2 or Asia-Pacific Cable Network 2 is a submarine telecommunications cable linking several countries in the Asia-Pacific region.It has landing points in:*Chongming, Shanghai, China*Shantou, Guangdong Province, China...
, an intra-Asian cable that forms a ring linking China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan. - Pacific Crossing West and Pacific Crossing North
- Segments of the East Asia Crossing network (reported by PacNetPacnetPacnet is a global telecommunications service provider formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet on 8 January 2008...
) - A segment of the Japan-U.S. Cable NetworkJapan-US (cable system)Japan-US is a submarine telecommunications cable system in the North Pacific Ocean linking the USA and Japan.It has landing points in:*Shima, Mie Prefecture, Japan...
(reported by Korea TelecomKorea TelecomKT Corporation is a South Korean integrated wired/wireless telecommunication service provider. KT has an information & communications business, and has the largest portion of the South Korean local telephone and high-speed Internet business...
) - PC-1 submarine cable system (reported by NTTNippon Telegraph and Telephone, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....
)
See also
- List of domestic submarine communications cables
- List of international submarine communications cables
External links
- The International Cable Protection Committee -- includes a register of submarine cables worldwide (though not always updated as often as one might hope)
- Timeline of Submarine Communications Cables, 1850-2010
- Kingfisher Information Service - Cable Awareness; UK Fisherman's Submarine Cable Awareness site
- France Telecom's Fishermen's/Submarine Cable Information
- Oregon Fisherman's Cable Committee
- Website with comprehensive list of cable landing sites and suppliers globally (contains many duplicates and incomplete data)
- SubOptic -- the industry's major conference, held every 3 years
- Submarine Telecoms Forum -- a trade magazine dedicated to the submarine cable industry
Articles
- History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy - Wire Rope and the Submarine Cable Industry
- 1939 Article on Laying Submarine Cables
- Mother Earth Mother Board - Wired article by Neal Stephenson about submarine cables
- Nature article - Geomagnetic induction on a transatlantic communications cable
- Hunt, Bruce J. Lord Cable. Europhysics News (2004), Vol. 35 No 6.
- Winkler, Jonathan Reed. Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008) Account of how U.S. government discovered strategic significance of communications lines, including submarine cables, during World War I.
- Animations from Alcatel showing how submarine cables are installed and repaired
- Work begins to repair severed net
Maps
- TeleGeography Interactive Cable Map Comprehensive online submarine cable map displaying cable routes, landing points, owners, length, ready-for-service (RFS) date, and website.
- Greg's Cable Map Google map display of submarine cables with downloadable KML data.
- Map and Satellite views of US landing sites for transatlantic cables
- Map and Satellite views of US landing sites for transpacific cables
- World map of submarine cables from the Guardian
- Positions and Route information of Submarine Cables in the Seas Around the UK
