Little known things about marine fiber optic cable

The backbone of the world Internet system has a complex layout and more than twice the distance from the Earth to the moon.

Every second there are millions of emails and clicks, searches happen through websites worldwide.All can work smoothly thanks to the operation and connection of the Internet everywhere.But these flows are not transmitted through the air, although the number of mobile devices is increasing.Because satellites only support less than 1% of human interaction.In fact, the Internet - the most important resource in the modern world - is very tangible and quite vulnerable.It exists a large part at our feet, with a complex system of underwater and underground cables, connecting with giant data storage units together, helping users access any Any information at any time.

Information transmitted through websites comes from data servers, located in data centers located around the world.In 2008, an estimated 9.5 trillion gigabytes were transferred into and out of servers around the world.The transmission of information to and from servers often passes through the oceans and is almost entirely based on cables because it is faster and cheaper than satellites.However, this is a "tedious" process, because to build sea cables across the ocean, people have to take at least 200 years and maintain a lot.

This is a map of more than 300 marine cable routes around the world, with a total length of nearly 900,000km.97% of intercontinental data is transmitted through these cable routes.If straightening the entire sea cable, their length can extend from the Earth to the moon and then back, the remainder can then wrap around the Earth's widest point nearly three times.

In the picture is the world's longest cable route called SeaMeWe-3 , linking Germany with South Korea and Australia with a total length of 38,600km, with 39 connections on the route.

There are many different types of marine cables, distinguished by the thickness of the diameter and the fabrication materials, exclusively for each geographical area.The lightest cable, at the far right, specializes in the bottom of deep oceans.Their central part is fiber optic cables for information transmission, protected by water-resistant materials and metal layers.

Placing the cable to the seabed requires a few months of time, costing millions of dollars, using very large ships to carry giant cable rolls of kilometers.Some cables are located about 7.6 km deep on the ocean floor, to avoid damage from natural disasters, corrosion, fishermen and even sharks.

Repair of damaged marine cables is handled by special ships.They use small hooks to pull the cable up or cut the cable in half and bring both halves to the surface to repair.At least 50 times a year, damaged marine fiber cables are over the Atlantic, according to MIT Tech Review.

At the shore, the sea cable ends the journey on the ocean floor and moves underground, to data centers.Construction and maintenance of underground cables is much easier than undersea cables (partly attributed to the absence of a shark threat).

However on the ground, the difficult problem faced is the construction.To prevent the cables from being dug up, they are placed along the air ducts or inside the old pipes, with marks on the ground along the route.Similar to underwater fiber cables, cable lines in the ground can be damaged by natural disasters, such as earthquakes.

Their end points are data centers, namely data servers. These are often unmarked buildings located in rural areas, outside the city limits. For security, they are not marked on the map, with multi-layer protection systems. Looking from the outside, they look like buildings with simple designs. But in fact, this is where "security systems are much higher than any airport".

Because of the huge heat output, data servers are often located in specially designed rooms, with ceilings higher than 4 meters.They consume a large amount of electricity and companies often have to build their own power supply systems to support the operation.