On Feb 1, 2008 11:43 AM, Steven M. Bellovin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There's an interesting article at > http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Outages-Cables.html > on cable chokepoints. >
"NEW YORK (AP) -- The lines that tie the globe together by carrying phone calls and Internet traffic are just two-thirds of an inch thick where they lie on the ocean floor." This article is somewhat "misleading". Semantics, but it set the tone of the article for me and probably most of the public. The cables are able to have their physical characteristics changed by the ability to splice joints into the cable and connect two physically disparate ends to serve specific purposes related bottom geologies, depth, and other dangers. Different cable types are deployed to mitigate different risks such as fishing, quakes, slides, etc. The lightweight cable may be thinner, but is used in less risky settings like massive depths. When you get to something like heavy weight armored on the edge of a fishing ground or winding through a treacherous bottom geology, your're talking much larger diameters and much more weight, as Rod Beck had mentioned previously. There are many variables that go into route selection and cabling which impact type. Cost is one. -M<
