how does the internat span continents?

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Luke
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how does the internat span continents?

Post by Luke »

OK, I understand how the internet works and I know how data gets from the east coast to me on the west coast... but how the hell does it make it from other continents here? satellite? I've always wondered this. :?
timvw
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Post by timvw »

fiber... overseas...

eg: http://spectral.mscs.mu.edu/NetworksCla ... ccable.htm.

The problem with satellite is the high latency... (takes 'ages' to reach that geostationary satellite and then travel back to it's destination... )
Last edited by timvw on Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

fiber cable is ran under the ocean? Is that what you're telling me?

EDIT: WOW... that is awesome. Thanks. :-D
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Dude, don't you remember the pictures from high school that showed ships with huge reels of cable and men unreeling the cable out in the middle of the water? I swear that is etched in my brain forever. It was (I think) how transcontinental phone calls used to be made.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

completely new to me. I was a little embarrassed to ask, but I just had to know. :oops:
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jayshields
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Post by jayshields »

I wouldn't say I always wondered the same, but I presumed it was satellite and thought nothing of it. You're serious with the ships/cables Everah?

What happens in years time when the cables need to be upgraded?!
What happens if suddenly the cable stops working? They gotta find a cut in the cable that spans the entire ocean? Or just put a new one down?!
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

The cable they use is extremely thick. In comparison the thickness (and quantity) of the fibers inside the cable used for transmissions is extremely small. In the 70's there was, if memory serves, three filament strands of fiber in a four to five inch diameter cable. The filaments each had a diameter of less than a millimeter. The existing cables carry more strands and are thicker today. The ships running the cables are in operation 24 hours a day, every single day of the year laying new wire.

The actual chance of the wire breaking is fairly minimal. Even if it does, there are redundancies in place now that will shift traffic to alternate routes, so the real effect would be some lost packets and slightly longer lag between, but not much else. The cables they are laying now may be the foundational stuff for Internet2 however. I can't remember when they planned the pushes to expand it.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

We do occassionally see problems with the networking don't we? I could swear we've had inter-continental issues just recently, but maybe I'm imagining it, and maybe it's got nothing to do with cable breakage.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

The only issues I'm aware of are more often caused by the provider rather than the hardware. L3, for example, has been being a jerk for various reasons in the past year or so.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

Or if there is an earth quake, severing the underwater cables - as happened in Taiwan, disconnecting 98% of the internet capable population from the rest of the globe:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/27 ... ke_taiwan/
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

jayshields wrote:I wouldn't say I always wondered the same, but I presumed it was satellite and thought nothing of it. You're serious with the ships/cables Everah?
As can be gleaned from the posts between yours and this one, yes, I was serious. I remember seeing images of it. It was amazing, and at the same time totally logic to me.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

Well this is fascinating. I want to see some images of this... off to google land! :D

found this... http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/alcatel_large.gif
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