The Hazardous Life of an Undersea Cable

[@davegbro]

It's so wild that basically all the information exchanged by humanity gets squeezed down to a few choke points

[@KeviPegoraro]

at terrabits per second rate in one tiny cable it is insane

[@Bob-jn8gt]

Makes it easier on the NSA

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@Bob-jn8gt ding ding ding ding

[@littlekirby6]

I remember when I was little, growing up when cellphones were becoming more popular and common, I always thought that wireless signals would go to a cell tower, bounce up to a satellite, and go back down to another cell tower near the destination. But nope lol. It's all just big fat wires that go over land and under sea.

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@littlekirby6 I mean that logic honestly does make sense compared to a lot of little kid thinking

[@johnmatthew102]

I am a retired splicing technician for the phone company and I have had the pleasure of splicing in a new submarine cable to cut around a damaged section caused by a boat anchor in the Kanawha River. Two days of shift work in a tent by the river to open up the armored cable. splice the 1600 pairs of phone wires to restore service, and then meticulously seal it up and pressure test it. The crossing was well marked and I heard the barge operator got some healthy fines. Someone had to pay for our hard work! :)

[@trxtech3010]

Gooood forrrr youuuu

[@thirstyviaduct]

Thank you for the interesting story. Cool insights into real world experience.

[@DubNation2016]

Thank you. It's hard working people like you who keep our world afloat. And it often goes unnoticed.

[@thenerdnetwork]

Kind of crazy that copper is nearly dead now. It is worth more to scrap all the copper and put a few fibers in place of a 1600 pair that can handle infinitely more data and pick up the same amount of customers with just a couple of pairs of fiber.

[@whoisharo4689]

Did you ever have to pull something apart, fix it then patch it all up, only to then power it up and it didn't work? I hate that. What a nightmare.

[@eilamaverbuch1835]

4:30 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️ galvanized steel mentioned 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

[@maximilianmangosi]

We are only missing the eco friendly wood veneer

[@justinliu7788]

And the screws borrowed from an aunt

[@pyrojinn]

I hate my receptors for instantly recognizing and attributing to the meme when hearing that now

[@Bantobror]

Little Johnny needs to talk to his aunt on the other side of the globe

[@AruarianDauber]

immediately went to comments and found

[@tubaterry]

Chafing is one of my most insidious natural hazards too

[@BobConnor-n2g]

When it comes to sports and fitness, chafing really is an issue.

[@Pr0toPoTaT0]

This is a solid comment. God I remember being a kid and getting that playing soccer. Wondering what I can do to solve this. It's all in the briefs fellas!

[@Azmodon]

@@Pr0toPoTaT0 for me it was non-contact football, just wearing the scratchy jerseys... no undershirt... nips weren't the same for days

[@mikehi7797]

@@BobConnor-n2g and work

[@Johnnypaycheck77]

Mine is good ol monkey butt!

[@hagerty1952]

Yes, "gutta-perka" is a funny word when pronounced that way. The second half is actually pronounced "perch-a" and it's used today in root canal surgery to backfill the hole in the tooth root and prevent bacterial intrusion.

[@CarneyBarney-qo7wq]

Also, imagine literally digging up undersea cables to scrap copper, mental.

[@DRakeTRofKBam]

All for a tiny bit of copper, wrapped up in tons of plastic, steel and seaground

[@yensteel]

If they could, they would…

[@Meta7]

It's very common in Vietnam, sadly. People also used to literally cut up unexploded Vietnam War bombs to sell the explosives inside. Not sure if they still do it now.

[@freddy4603]

I'd assume they themselves didn't have access to the internet, so nothing lost for them...

[@donsolos]

​@@DRakeTRofKBamthat was no "tiny bit" of copper. I bet they made a fortune

[@Lion_McLionhead]

Revives memories of how slow the internet was in the 90's because of the lack of undersea cables & the number of personal servers in UK dorm rooms instead of AWS virginia.

[@yensteel]

Dialup internet was soooo slow, and you can't use the internet and landline at the same time. "Bad" times.

[@thewatcherinthecloud]

Inb4 fiber optics provided cheaper materials with better transmission.

[@donsolos]

And there was also significantly less competition for those resources as well. No streaming, no online gaming etc etc etc

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

Understandably methods for attacking cable are rarely talked about, what is public knowledge is largely what was done fifty years ago. Countries play their defences against such attacks even closer to their chests.

[@yensteel]

The Taiwan to US undersea cable project was cancelled due to pressure from China. A lot of politics can be involved :/

[@yensteel]

There was also this one nationwide internet outage that happened because a farmer dug a hole. They’re incredible weak points. For geopolitics, even satellites are part of the strategy.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

@@yensteel A number of countries have cheaped out on infrastructure and created too many single points of failure when they could afford better. This concerns me greatly.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

@@yensteel The PLCN cable will still go ahead just excluding the HK leg.

[@yensteel]

@@Matt_The_Hugenot Oh, it's nice that it continued! Sorry, the info was outdated. Also not nice to HK...

[@jackiegaming874]

Here in Vietnam our sea cables only get broken 4 times a year and for about 3 months between each successful repair

[@ccshello1]

A good friend of mine, trained as ME, worked in BL served as Undersea Cable system engineer and dual-reporting to AT&T Undersea Cable business unit in late 80s and on, until sold to Tyco. He said shark bites were/are the common occurrence. We theorized that - in electrical signal transmission, although at T3 speed, the pulses and harmonics emit RFI, electric shield (steel armor as emission shield) does not work too well. - Since the new TAT-8 has just transitioned to optical fibers but the problem still did not go away, so the working theory is magnetism!

[@mfaizsyahmi]

which 3LA puts out those "undisclosed functions"? inb4 the answer is "yes."

[@oznerol256]

Sea Water return!? That means intermediate nodes and end nodes need electrodes to the sea water, right? Sounds like a nightmare of rust/oxidation.

[@lmamakos]

Seems like an ideal private industry/government "partnership." If you want a network of hydrophones on the sea bed to track.. aquatic activity.. they naturally need some data communications. And if the cable operator needs amplifiers ("easy") or repeaters (harder/more expensive) those would seem to be an ideal place for such a thing. These days under the Atlantic, you can avoid needing any repeaters -- devices that recover bits and remodulate/retransmit them -- using low dispersion fiber and optical amplifiers. You can deploy an optical amplifier that will increase the signal level of all the wavelengths of light in a fiber used in a DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing system.) This is very powerful because it doesn't have to split out each wavelength, detect the signal, retransmit with a laser for each wavelength, and then recombine. The optical amplifier works on all the wavelengths "at once". But this is where you need "low dispersion" fiber. Imagine that you transmit a single pulse of light (on a particular wavelength/color). As those photons propagate down the glass fiber, they don't all take exactly the same path through the glass. So that pulse of light will start to "spread out" as it travels through the fiber. And the problem is that it spreads out too far and smears into the previous and next pulse. Low dispersion fiber is carefully made using magic and physics and fancy manufacturing to keep the photons nudged closer to a single path down the middle of the fiber. The extreme version of this is "single-mode" vs. "multi-mode" fiber. There is an amazing amount of engineering going on with these systems, and over the last decade or two, the systems are constructed to carry data as the first-class, primary customer, rather than synchronous TDM traffic of multiplexed phone calls. The hand-off to customers looks like an ethernet, and cable operators have much more flexible bandwidth allocation tools available that didn't exist in the past with SONET/SDH transport systems.

[@ccshello1]

Hazardous environment justifies the investment of pre build maintenance facilities and repair possibilities thus IMHO never a super long cable without built-in pods. BTW, between technology and political influence, one always wins.

[@brunonikodemski2420]

Some of this is undoubtedly true. We had cables which did NOT have a steel cable wrapping, with very high voltages in them. The copper outer shell did not contain magnetic fields hardly at all, and mostly by eddy effects. Leakages were high. We did one job, where the strength members were all Kevlar or Aramid fiber. In that case it did not matter if anyone tapped it, since it was just going to an undersea oil drilling tooling fixture, and everyone knew what was going on.

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

I stayed at bed and breakfast down near Gig Harbor Washington, home to one of the most massive Naval bases on the US West coast. We got inside, and the hostess were a homemaker and a man retired out of the navy. While she was showing my wife the decorating, he took me downstairs to his man cave / bar for a drink. On the bar was a weird item in a glass presentation case. He asked me to guess what it was and me knowing quite a bit about things immediately identified it as a section of an undersea Communications cable. This man was the former commander of the nuclear submarine USS Flounder, in a secret Mission decades ago,his crew located on the sea floor, and removd a section of Russian undersea military communications cable and added a recording device and this was a section of that cable taken on that mission.

[@hullinstruments]

That was such an incredible saga. The process of setting up AND ESPECIALLY maintaining that cable tap.

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

​@@hullinstruments I'd forgotten that part of the mission was to come back multiple times to get the recordings of what was communicated on the cable has no Bluetooth existed. He said it was powered by a SNAP nuclear cell using PU 238, which was at that time, most of what existed in the US inventory at the time.

[@brunonikodemski2420]

I too, have a piece of cable from that saga, and also the Korean sites. Our group had a special submersible, which was also used for such missions. Some of their stories were horrifingly blunt, and not for the weak of heart.

[@stevengill1736]

Yes.,.it was fascinating hearing those stories. I sat spellbound for a couple hours listening to a KZbin discussion of that with interviews of you Navy guys. My brother was a Navy lifer and I remember him hinting about secret submarine missions. I could only imagine such things 'till recently! Hey, were those cable samples you guys have wire pairs or optical? It was a little while ago....

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

@brunonikodemski2420 My uncle and a cousin of his fought in Korea at Pusan reservoir. He told me captured Chinese soliders were killing POWs on orders from their commander. He was captured later in the day, and given a drumhead trial the next morning.

[@TehEpicMuffzor]

I've been watching you for years and love the balance you strike between pure facts and good jokes. Thank you for injecting yourself and some lovely comedy into the content :)

[@nabicx]

heavy agree. I'm also glad he's gotten the recognition he always deserved

[@Bromon655]

“Good jokes”

[@CrotalusHH]

I used to repair the machinery that made those cables at Phelps-Dodge in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. 1980

[@brunonikodemski2420]

Some of our were from New England Wire.

[@caiocc12]

4:29 so disappointing it wasn't galvanised square steel fastened with screws borrowed from an aunt

[@andrewdubose9968]

Wow, I’m both amazed and disappointed in myself for understanding the reference 😂😮

[@tom23rd]

"guy she told you not to worry about" 😂

[@liledw13]

Bruhhhh. That guy lays that thick armored cable

[@mark-]

Now I am concerned and confused, it worrying

[@Game_Hero]

4:59 for those wondering

[@Conservator.]

@@Game_HeroThanks!

[@km077]

@@liledw13 Exactly, it's so big and thicc, he has to unload it from his cable tank onto his cable highway. 😯🥴🥵

[@GettingOlderByTheDay71]

Wow, this brought back memories of the days I worked on the USNS Albert J Myer and USNS Zeus, both military submarine cable laying/repair ships.Thanks for the video

[@Unb3arablePain]

Granted I do mechanical/nuclear engineering but the engineering of communications cable never ceases to amaze me. Had a great Senior Staff I&C engineer teach me all about communications protocols, wiring, how to spec and use it, etc. It all makes the engineering of these undersea cables look like child's play.

[@oddspaghetti4287]

At the end of last year a gas line connecting Finland and Estonia and an undersea cable connecting Sweden and Estonia were damaged. It is indeed hard to protect these undersea assets and easy to deniably attack them.

[@erikhesjedal3569]

Hmmmmm it has nothing to do with the reds?

[@perryallan3524]

If the cable is considered critical it is possible to trench and bury it some feet deep in the ocean (lake, seabed) bottom. That is also very expensive. But, is done in certain cases.

[@johnnyxmusic]

Not to mention the gas line from the Russia to Germany that the United States didn’t cut even Biden said we would halt the exports

[@johnnyxmusic]

Perch-a…… like perch, the fish.

[@brandonmiles8174]

I work for Prysmian. Submarine cable has become one of the primary areas of business for the company and it is pretty cool. Check out their ship for laying submarine cable, the Leonardo da Vinci. It's nuts.

[@Simon_Denmark]

Prysmian recently finished their tower for manufacturing high voltage sea and underground cables here in Finland, Pikkala. I think that they’re only starting the production in 2025 though. I didn’t know that Prysmian had a ship like that, I couldn’t find any information on it by googling though.

[@brandonmiles8174]

@Simon_Denmark Yes, Pikkala is a very large plant for Prysmian. My current HR manager was in charge of HR over all of Finland, based out of Pikkala until she moved here to the US about 18 months ago. I apologize, I had the ship name incorrect, it is the Giulio Verne, but our big ship is the Leonardo da Vinci. It is a massive machine, but I heard that we just invested a half billion dollars to make an even bigger state of the art submarine cable laying ship. I'll edit my original comment and change the name of the ship. Prysmian seems to be taking over energy and electrification when it comes to cable production.

[@Simon_Denmark]

@@brandonmiles8174 Oh that’s cool, thanks for sharing. I definitely know Prysmian as an electrician and soon to be electrical engineer. I don’t work on the sea cabling or wind turbine side, more on the railway side.

[@KevinBalch-dt8ot]

The US used nuclear submarines to attach equipment to tap into Soviet undersea cables during the Cold War. I assume that still happens on both sides.

[@Hypn0s2]

I haven't heard of any optical underwater taps but they do happen at the datacenters where the cables go. Look into "Room 641A". That is the most famous US/NSA example.

[@cardboardpig]

It is incredibly difficult to tap submarine cables these days - not only do we know when breaks occur we know roughly where they occur as well; and on top of this many buyers of capacity on submarine cables use line rate encryption tech like macsec. Far easier to capture traffic at packet exchanges etc. these days. Source: me, have worked for operators of submarine cable systems.

[@yensteel]

There was one point where 15% percent of the world's internet was forcibly rerouted through a certain country before teaching its final destination. That phenomenon lasted for 18 minutes. Internet wiretapping, IoT hacking with raspberry pi zero, are pretty commonplace.

[@perryallan3524]

This was not a hard tap. No penetration of the cable occurred. The equipment recorded the electrical and magnetic fields given off by the telephone wires through the cable casing. While there were multiple phone lines in the cable - it apparently was a small enough number to be able to separate their electrical signatures and individual conversations and data was recorded. The data was recorded on tape (very large tape reel), with the monitoring probe switched something like every 6 months. So all conversations and data recovered was at least a month old and could be 7 months old by the time the tapes got back to the secure lab that listened to them. Another key was that the Soviet Union thought this cable was secure and there was no encryption of voice or data at the time. Today, everyone assumes that no form of communication is secure and extensive encryption is now routinely used for classified data and conversations.

[@BVN-TEXAS]

It’s not hard to tap a fiber cable when you have an unlimited budget. You don’t have to cut it. You get the light out from the side with a very minimal attenuation.

[@p.6621]

great video as always, amazed of how much research you put in to these videos

[@joeldobbs7396]

As soon as I saw the title of this episode, it became a good day. I was grateful, because till then it had been a bad day, the kind of day that a man thinks back to as he drinks warm $4 sherry behind a Dennys, wondering if that day hadn't been so utterly atrocious, maybe he would be inside paying for fresh pie, instead of outside waiting for whatever is left in pie pans when the pie is gone, the kind of day only a grammatical nightmare of a run on sentence could do justice to. In a moment it changed, and a forlorn future disappeared in a puff of .........I dunno, ran out of drama gas. I do really enjoy this topic, and I know Asianometry will do a great job of covering it. Not sure why I like it so much, but I am saving it for the mid shift grind. Thanks for making my day, hyperbole etc etc.

[@CarneyBarney-qo7wq]

I love these little videos on things that don't need some sort of understanding of a technology like some of your more obscure electrical engineering videos do. Love your channel

[@jxh02]

One of the most interesting aspects of this story, to me, is the lag between the first transatlantic telegraph cable, and the first tele-phone- cable, TAT-1, almost 100 years later!! And half a century after Marconi spanned the Atlantic with radio in 1906. You would think the transistor ultimately enabled it, and of course that had to wait until 1947. But they were new and un-tested. It was all done with tubes.

[@kenoliver8913]

Bandwidth requirements for telegraph (binary Morse code) and telephone (voice) are RADICALLY different. The capacitance of the cable really affects that - and seawater is a wonderful dielectric (ie a cable under it creates a massive capacitor).

[@Musicaloris]

I am really loving the humor in your videos. I cracked up at "The guy she told you not to worry about"

I wonder what type of person laughs at cheater jokes

[@connorthomas2667]

not the one being cheated on 😁

[@GoldenChildBH]

“SURE DOES!”

[@johnweiner]

I'm at 4:13 of this video...interesting about the cladding, but a more interesting story is the "co-axial" cable that finally permitted rapid, relatively high bandwidth signaling over oceanic distances. We have the genius Oliver Heaviside to thank for the correct analysis of how to make the signal-carrying element high-bandwidth.

[@carltauber2939]

The "ch" in gutta percha is pronounced like the "ch" in chair.

[@BobConnor-n2g]

Used to this day in root canals.

[@carltauber2939]

@@BobConnor-n2g I know! I have three

[@vulpo]

Yes, we are listening.

[@bentucker2301]

And rattan isn't rattain

[@bwhog]

Yes, it's essentially a plastic made from natural materials.

[@DerekWoolverton]

PBS American Experience did a wonderful video on the transatlantic cable and its a remarkable study in engineering and science. Many of the electrical units we use today were created to study the failure of the first cable (partially because of the enormous monetary loss that is was, and the need to understand what went wrong).

[@uzaiyaro]

It should be noted that the cable in the thumbnail is a power cable, hence the three large copper conductors. Why three? Three phase power. Some of these cables also carry fibre as a secondary use, which you may as well do if you’re laying the cable at all. I think the Tasmanian-Victorian undersea cable does both, and in fact I think it’s actually the cable pictured, but I can’t remember. In any case, Tasmania imports a good amount of its power from Victoria (which sometimes in turn imports its power from other states) using this cable, and much of their internet traffic is routed through this cable too.

[@MrAngenos]

14:07 did the burial protection index include the typo?

[@Na808Koa]

At 3:57 LW cable is used in the deep water sections 6,000m to 2,000m because it is not worried about sharks, anchors or fishing activity.

[@raylopez99]

A while ago I read about the first transatlantic cable, about the size of a thumb in diameter, and the constant impedance mismatches as the cable played out and strength issues that snapped the cable. The cable was wrapped in....gutta percha. The book was: " Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable Paperback - Illustrated, July 1, 2003 by John Steele Gordon

[@ck17350]

Every critical service is vulnerable to a determined attacker and in many cases, an undetermined attacker. It's prohibitively expensive to fortify everything so we trust each other to not be a-holes. Thankfully, this has served most of the world very well for thousands of years, with some exceptions of course. :)

[@jeremiahreilly9739]

Asianometry is the Best. You are a gifted presenter. Thank you.

[@travissutherland8502]

This is one of the best channels on KZbin. Haven’t even watched this video yet but it’s surely excellent

[@AndrewLambert-wi8et]

WHAT HAPPENS IF AN ENEMY CUTS THE CABLES EVERY FEW HUNDREDS OF KILOMETERS AND THEN STEALS THE PIECES. WILL IT TAKE A LONG TIME TO FIX IT?

[@jamieknight326]

I’ve seen a few of these systems up close when I worked for the BBC. The bandwidth is impressive, so is the tech used to at the landing sites to peer back into infrastructure. I wish I’d learnt more about then when I had the chance. Same for chatting more with the satellite folks!

[@austinhamilton9707]

"Wow, I bet splicing that cable is difficult" "It's exactly as hard as you think" "oh dang"

[@ELREASON44]

Could some type of leading wheel solve the 'Otter boars' (10:20) problem? Instead of the board directly catching a cable, a wheel would simply allow the board to basically jump over the cable-and still have the effect of keeping the net open.

[@MrExasperation]

The first undersea telegraph cables were in the 1850s - 1860s and the whole world was connected by about 1900. But all of those cables were just that, a big long wire, and enormous voltages were used to send messages very slowly. Telephone and high speed data needs amplifiers and electronics. That wouldn't happen until 1956 with TAT-1, which had miniature highly reliable vacuum tube amplifiers built into the cable, every hundred miles or so. Up to 36 simultaneous phone calls between Canada/US and the UK.

[@flyingdutchman28]

I have to take a moment to do a shout out to one of the best informative channels on KZbin today. If I had a Wang, I’d totally write a book about it…

[@norbkowa]

In late 90s and early 2000s i worked for company that built under the ocean fiberoptic network. I was part of building of repeaters that were responsible for amplifing signal every 40 miles. Those cables had fiberoptics and power cables inside. Pretty cool technology

[@MSP_TechLab]

13:30 many years ago when I was a young telecom technician apprentice, I spent maybe halve of my apprenticeship by digging tranches for cables with simple shovel because our bosses decided to save a fortune on appropriate machinery. Thanks destiny that we didn't have river or sea nearby, I bet they would order to dig even there too 😂.

[@kenoliver8913]

Gee, that's the sort of thing apprentices are FOR ...

[@BVN-TEXAS]

It’s amazing how much we can send over a very small piece of glass.

[@LucaEnzo]

I love your style - 100% info 0% filler Too many creators weigh their videos those with too much comedic elemants to the point they might as well produce a comedy show. So thx ^^

[@AWildBard]

Another kind of cable is high voltage DC cable, or HVDC. They are used to provide electricity power to islands, but in more recent times, they are being used for wind farms.

[@danielmcanulty1562]

Protecting them does seem critical. Thanks for this research and discussion!

[@michealmorrow1481]

Has anyone proposed leaving some slack every few kilometers to be used in case of floor movement.

[@dsnodgrass4843]

Yes, but traveling thru that slack would further degrade the signal; requiring more repeaters over the length of the run. That runs into serious extra spending.

[@michealmorrow1481]

@@dsnodgrass4843 A few extra repeaters vs. broken cable? Interesting betting situation.

[@mattheide2775]

Undersea pipelines might make an awesome follow up subject? Great video as always. Thank you.

[@stevengill1736]

Good idea! Especially considering the recent Nordstream debacle. Just the hundreds of high pressure natural gas pipelines in the American southwest and beyond is a whole saga - then there's the web of petrochemical pipelines it the eastern US, not to mention crude oil conduits all over the world, there must be thousands of miles of them! When I was a kid I got to visit one of those natural gas pumping stations east of LA - there were these giant engines (running on natural gas of course) that would keep these huge pipes pressurized to feed the gas harvested in Texas to LA, San Diego and so on. Noisy place, runs 24/7 of course.... there's a number of them all over the place... somehow they keep those pipelines full year in, year out.... makes one ponder.... what's gonna happen when the gas runs out?

[@mattheide2775]

@@stevengill1736 I was in Tucson when an underground gasoline pipeline broke. I think it was 4 inches in diameter and it took a few days to realize it had a severe leak. The infrastructure is just huge and we really need it to work. I've never seen a pumping station like the one you saw, that would be awesome. Here in Washington we have hydroelectric dams 👍

[@chris8612]

​@@stevengill1736 With fracking tech the USA has about 100 years of NG.

[@Gemät_33]

One of my favorite channels on KZbin. I currently work in fiber optic network design. 🤙🏼

[@Gemät_33]

@15:24 redundancy is built into the system in the event of an outage.

[@awarepenguin3376]

great video as always. you mention at the beginning that the cables carry gigabits of data which is technically true, but we're in the terabit range now.

[@geronimo5537]

Aside from the great cable information that I knew nothing about. This revealed a small ww2 lession. Why the axis were so focused on radio. Their own cables were cut in war forcing them to use wireless for all to hear. Then later decrypt to be listened.

[@alexhubble]

"This is as hard as you might think" - by crikey, I'm glad there's clever people in the world.

[@pppaulie]

0:59 it's pronounced O-shag-hennessy 😉

[@dan110024]

So excited to watch because this seems like an Asianometry video that I will actually be able to comprehend and understand!!

[@fibconetfttxsupplier2424]

This video is extremely informative for understanding the development of submarine optical cables. As a manufacturer of these cables, I can confidently say that their production involves high complexity and stringent material requirements. Moreover, minimizing the costs associated with maintenance in the long run is crucial😂.

[@jamesholden9540]

Galvanized steel with eco friendly wood veneers

[@cyrex686]

That museum in halifax, nova scotia has an impressive collection of undersea cables, from the first transatlantic to modern fibreoptic cables. Really interesting to see the changes over the years.

[@aaronawoodard]

I could give proposals for a 'defended cable strategy' since it appears that there is a need for them. First you need a 'net' like cable that has very large holes, and to do the defending we use drones. Lots, and lots of drones. Cut a cable and the drones swarm from their solar powered platforms, some explosions, threat neutralized. Drones replenish by hopping one platform over all at once and we fill in from the shore.

[@BurleyBoar]

When I saw this video in my notifications I was talking to my hubby. I ended my sentence saying (in a playful way) "...and shut up. A new Asianometry just dropped." Then I played your video.

[@davidwell686]

I met a tube collector that had a very old tube that was used in underseas cables. Amazing he had it and is tube collection was huge and he is a great guy to chat with about tubes.

[@denawiltsie4412]

You can buy a GPS unit accurate to about half a foot for under $1,000. Add a laptop with a map of all the undersea structure and fishing fleets would know where every hazard was located and when they are getting close. Adding bottom depth and navigation information might make this something they need to have onboard. It's possible they already have something onboard that only requires an up to date map.

[@farficknugan]

I can tell that this isn't an AI generated thing where you just have the script read by some AI person. I appreciate that. You get a sub

[@bwhog]

Burying cables has its problems. If there is a failure of an amplifier, for example, you have to pull the cable to the surface to fix it. That is, once you actually FIND it and can actually get ahold of it. That means removing it from the trench. Once fixed, you have to put it back down. No small feat.

[@Dalamain]

Thank you for this, I am always fascinatd by undersea cables.

[@tom4ivo]

2:32 The first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858, not 1866. Unfortunately, the cable degraded rapidly and was unusable in less than a month. The start of the American Civil War in 1859 delayed a second attempt.

[@IsZomg]

Dont forget that the USA has at least two dedicated submarines for tapping undersea cables for the NSA

[@kenzie2191]

4:29 but little john needs to borrow that for his apartment

[@akselhansen304]

The thumbnail being the only picture of a high voltage power line cable is interesting But I get that the focus is under sea cables in general

[@sebastianescobar3918]

"the guy she told you not to worry about" 🤣🤣🤣

[@forrestberg591]

Very nice video. I would be interested in methods of failure identification and location. I feel effective methods would be the best defense against sabotage

[@waziammm]

With such an array of things that can go awry it is truly amazing any online messages get's thr...

[@keltec1279]

Cross sections in general are so weird looking but great video

[@marc-andreservant201]

One of the theories as to why sharks bite fiber optic cables is that the nonlinear optics in the repeaters require a power source, so the cable carries both fiber optic and copper for electric power. Sharks are sensitive to electric fields and mistake the cable as prey.

[@oldmoviesinbwwithsubtitles3501]

I've always been interested in this This was a very good video

[@HL65536]

Maybe the cables should resemble more how the rest of the internet works: a net where some cut strings don't matter. Instead of laying a long line with periodic repeaters, maybe it would be a good idea to lay a net, same distance between repeaters, but the repeaters are also routers able to switch direction of the signal. Also, they are crossings with multiple connected cables (maybe 6 per crossing, making a 60° equidistant triangle mesh). Making the routers plug-and-play with the cables could also vastly reduce the cost of replacing a broken section. Or I have overlooked some reason that is not viable, who knows...

[@OttoFazzl]

Great video as always, but my ears bled a little each time he mis-pronounced "gutta-percha".

[@Numba003]

I think it's funny how much modern global internet and communications depend on these undersea cables, yet, at least in my experience, many people don't even or barely know they even exist, let alone how important they are. Thank you for another informative video! I look forward to the next one! God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)

[@thebeaconnetwork]

Sharks find prey and other objects with an organ that can discern electric fields, organic or artificial. They are more than likely able to sense the cable's power output and was attracted to it thinking it might be prey.

[@douro20]

I think most fish can do that.

[@thebeaconnetwork]

@@douro20 the video highlighted sharks, raising the question of why these specific fish were biting buried cables.

[@douro20]

@@thebeaconnetwork Sharks are a type of fish.

[@thebeaconnetwork]

@@douro20 And the only fish mentioned in the video and shown disrupting an undersea cable..."most fish" aren't featured.

[@SuperCoolTeenisGuy]

idt fiber optic cables carry electricity

[@iDrunkRS]

The dry humor here is impressive. Love this

[@rsmrsm2000]

The knowledge gathered in this video is incredible. Clearly and practically, I now know the peculiarities of submarine cables. Very useful for me as I intend to explore this market. Thanks

[@TheSeet3000]

Great quality as usual. Thank you

[@zeropol]

@@StoicGore This video is available for 2 months for Patreons. Im not patreon myself but you can sign in for free and see the release date of each video, and this one is dated 14 April. As a free lurker I cannot click to have further informations.

[@hotsauce2446]

​@@zeropolso then is he privating the videos and just sharing links to patrons? Seems like a stupid way to do it when you can just have members. Also shocking he gate keeps the videos for two months. Most youtubers do it for a week or two at most.

[@zeropol]

@@hotsauce2446 I don't know the how ( sharing link, membership.. ) and why ( stupidity, others.. ). I don't feel that concerned. But I saw your feeling of mistrust, and I wanted to tell you that it was based on too little information. That's why I subscribed to the free access, and then saw the date of the post was 2 months old. Besides, although we should expect to be disappointed often, not presupposing stupidity in others is a good habit to get into. I swear it could get you out of troubles most often than not, and you will be better prepared to cope any evil genius menacing your interests or abusing your confidence. In the end, although I can't exclude the possibility of view purchases at 100%, the information (also reduced, i.e. the date of the post, the fact that the typical profile of the youtuber who buys views will also clickbait, whereas this is not the case here, and also the low number of these early comments, the fact that the user TheSeet3000 has had an account for 8 years, with playlists) makes me rather confident in the assertion that it is unlikely that these are paid comments. I may be wrong and if more evidence are brought before me I'm ready to shift this assertion.

[@zeropol]

@@hotsauce2446 I answered but my answer is not displaying so I post again, sorry if this is a double post : I dont know ( like you ) the how ( membership, private sharing... ) nor the why ( stupidity, other.. ), what I saw was your feeling of mistrust and that's why I took the asianometry free access and was able to confirm that the post was two months old like the comment. Because I think you felt it when you had too little information. It's still an accusation of dishonesty towards him, so it's not something to be thrown around lightly, is it? Anyway, it's a good habit not to presuppose the stupidity of others. Both by not underestimating anyone who opposes you, by not hurting other people's feelings, by not missing a subtle message in the discussion, etc. Finally, although I can't exclude the possibility of view purchases at 100%, the information (also limited, i.e. the date of the post, the fact that the typical profile of the youtuber who buys views will also do clickbait, whereas this is not the case here, the low number of these early comments, and the fact that the user TheSeet3000 has had an account for 8 years, with playlists) makes me rather confident in the assertion that it is unlikely that these are paid comments. I could be wrong, and if new evidence is brought before me I may change my mind.

[@nexaentertainment2764]

Fun fact, under sea communications disruptions were a huge concern for the allies (particularly the USA) in ww2. If disrupted, it meant that the US would have to rely on notoriously unreliable trans-atlantic radio to communicate. Not just that, but of course anyone can hear your transmission then. Obviously this is still a huge concern today. Just, we've had a long time to think about it.

[@shoemakerleve9]

Thanks for this video, am currently planning laying 1000km undersea cables for a fun side project this weekend

[@davidca96]

ive always been amazed by these cables, how humans have been able to create them much less lay them and keep them working, its remarkable.

[@Conservator.]

11:27 I can’t imagine that an anker would go 1500m deep. Shouldn’t it be 150m or perhaps 1500ft? The anker cable should be 5x or 10x the depth so even 1500ft seems quite a lot (just my gut feeling). Could anyone with maritime experience enlighten me please? Thanks in advance!

[@susanacuratolo1200]

EXCELLENT REPORT.

[@CoperliteConsumer]

>Be shark Use electric signals to hunt. See giant electric signal Bite. There solved it for you.

[@jonahansen]

Merriam-Webster says gutta-percha is pronounced gut-uh perch-uh that is, the second word ends in cha, like in cha cha heels.

[@ronblack7870]

yes i cringed when he said perka

[@piracymoney]

I also add polyethylene and steel tape layers to reduce chaffing

[@computernoise2209]

Not-so-gentle reminder that the mere existence of 21 century technology is a miracle, both in its invention and maintenance.

[@Pimmeeuh]

I used to engineer the machines that put these cables there. Amazing job.

[@Aengus42]

Gutta-percha, you got the first bit right. But the second bit uses the ch sound used in perch.

[@Conundrum191]

Although in the past cutting a cable could be strategic in combat/warfare, I do wonder how much it would actually matter today. Sure, civilian traffic would be badly affected, but I'm sure most military communications can happen both via undersea cable and satellite, so I doubt the impact would be nearly as great as it would have been during WWI and WWII.

[@keaien]

Problem is Speed and capacity, satellite has speed as biggest issue. Large data volumes create problem not to mention multiple streams etc. Even military.

[@kenoliver8913]

The answer is simple redundancy - have lots of cables. Which in most places we now do. It means individual acts of sabotage (whether for money or for intelligence) create a lot of expense but do not usually interrupt traffic, military or civilian. As the saying is "the internet interprets sabotage as a fault and routes around it".

[@poerava]

10:52 That ‘perrrrrr’ was powerful Wow

[@msylvain59]

An undersea repeater is definitively something I want to take apart, but it seems they are not common to find in "for parts or repair" condition and price on eBay 🤔

[@deaconblue949]

Well done! Very informative and I enjoyed watching.

[@cyberfunk3793]

What kind of rubber you need for the cables to stop Russians messing with them?

[@T3hderk87]

Did you get a new mic? Sounds good!! Also, cable tech is super cool, thank you for the upload.

[@pendent23]

It gets a bit technical but you might enjoy doing some reading on how we "light" these fibers- I'm thinking of submarine DWDM systems specifically but there's other technologies out there. It is tremendously cool stuff