Page 1 of 1

how does the internat span continents?

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:54 pm
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. :?

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:58 pm
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... )

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:59 pm
by Luke
fiber cable is ran under the ocean? Is that what you're telling me?

EDIT: WOW... that is awesome. Thanks. :-D

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:46 pm
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.

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:48 pm
by Luke
completely new to me. I was a little embarrassed to ask, but I just had to know. :oops:

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 7:53 pm
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?!

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:15 pm
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.

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:39 am
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.

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:26 am
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.

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:09 am
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/

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:01 am
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.

Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:19 am
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