Dan York

Subsea cables are one of the most critical ways that we all get #InternetAccess But they are not well-understood by most people. This is an *excellent* explainer piece about how the cables work, their history, how they are installed, and what threats there are. Great way for those interested in learning about how the #Internet actually works!

Also includes a 4-minute video that explains more and has helpful video and images.

From: @stshank
https://mstdn.social/@stshank/110769356180266349

Stephen Shankland (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image I spent a lot of time and talked to a lot of people to learn about the subsea fiber optic network that's draped across the bottom of the world's oceans. Here's the result and a thread about it 1/n: https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/features/the-secret-life-of-the-500-cables-that-run-the-internet/

Mastodon 🐘
Jul 24, 2023 at 11:12pmIceCubesApp
Show threadphryk 🏴Jul 24, 2023

@danyork @stshank "Two thirds of traffic comes from the hyperscaler"

I shouldn't be suprised, but I am.

I wonder how much this could be scaled down if everyone used more local, decentralized platforms without 10 megs of adware on every page… :F

Show threadDan YorkJul 24, 2023
@phryk @stshank True.. but I think the cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc) make it SO much easier to host your service in their “cloud”. Hard to beat the economics for startups.
Show threadphryk 🏴Jul 24, 2023

@danyork @stshank Not only the monetary economics, but I assume at least to a degree also energy economics and I honestly can't tell how much better/worse running services more locally would be – it's just what I prefer because it improves control over your data and is a huge boon in resilience in case of internet breakage.

I guess what I just realized is that we need solarpunk data centers.^^

Show threadphryk 🏴Jul 24, 2023

https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/features/the-secret-life-of-the-500-cables-that-run-the-internet/

"We have one guy in particular that's just a savant at this," Coughlan said. "He has to be able to solve it with his hand with string first, because we found the computer modeling never works."

I was today years old when I found out the internet has a bus factor of 1. This is fine. 🔥😂

The Secret Life of the 500+ Cables That Run the Internet

Laced across the cold depths of the world's oceans is a network of multimillion-dollar cables, which have become the vital connections of our online lives.

CNET