Cable Capers

How is your broadband speed these days?  This is the kind of question often raised between consenting adults, and the cause for their concern, our increasing reliance on the many kilometers of undersea cable.

As this map produced by South African Greg Mahlknecht clearly shows, our oceans are crisscrossed with telecommunication cables.

See the original

The network wasn't so complicated in 1858 when the first cable across the Atlantic was dropped on the seabed but laying the cable certainly was.

Map of the 1858 Atlantic Cable route

As Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of the time records:

"The laying of the great Telegraph cable has necessitated the invention of new and even complicated machinery, while at the same time the accidental failure of the first attempt has brought about changes and improvements in the construction of the breaks and drums. We engrave, from drawings by our own correspondent, a complete representation of the machinery used. As is well known, the principal difficulty in the important undertaking is the even descent of the wire into the ocean without acquiring such velocity as to be broken by one of the sudden strains to which it is exposed, or coiling itself in a "kink." Of course the heavy swell of the Atlantic - and it must be remembered that even a calm implies a gigantic roll or swell of the mighty waves - will alternately raise and lower the vessel which is paying out the cable to such an extent as to necessitate a regulating power upon the descending wire, and in a gale of wind or on a chopping sea this necessity is vastly increased."

and later:

Cyrus W. Field

"Around midnight on the Tuesday a break occurred aboard ship and repairing it took until 7.00 am the next morning. Noon Wednesday 29 August a second conductor failed and during the day the wind and sea got up. Another break occurred on board ship and by the time this was repaired the pitching and tossing had strained the cable so badly that a third conductor had failed. By now the weather was so bad, the wind having reached near hurricane force, that the ship was in danger of foundering, it was decided to cut the cable and abandon the expedition."

The first cable was a failure but in 1866 the project driver, Cyrus W. Field succeeded in his quest. By 1901 our 'connected world' had become even more so, albeit very USA and Europe-centric.

The Eastern Telegraph Company map of 1901 shows that  in the short space of 35 years much of the world was cabled. It is no surprise that these connections echo the major global trade routes of the time.

The fiber-optic transatlantic cables of today are of the fibre optic variety.  These super fast lines shave milliseconds of data speed which can mean millions to a stock trader.

The 2011 Japanese earthquake caused widespread damage to undersea communications according to reports.

Japanese cables

Which all begs the question, with our dependence of the internet, how much more global disruption will there be when major 'quakes on the world's other fault lines decide to rupture?  It may be too late to sell those shares when it happens.

Related articles

• Old maps of undersea cables (visurus.wordpress.com)
• History of the Atlantic Cable
• Fiber-Optic Transatlantic Cable Could Save Milliseconds, Millions by Speeding Data to Stock Traders (popsci.com)

Is Social Media Destroying The Web?

Photo: Uldis Bojārs

Tim Benners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with developing the World Wide Web sees Facebook and other social platforms as a serious threat to the future of the Internet.

As he sees it, the four primary threats are:

1. The eroding of the web's core principles.
   
   
2. Social-networking sites are creating information silos with data posted by their users being locked off from the rest of the Web.
   
   
3. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals.
   
   
4. Governments of all persuasions are monitoring people’s online habits which in turn endangers important human rights.

In his Scientific American journal essay published today "Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality" he makes the case of the web being critical to the future prosperity of mankind.

"Why should you care? Because the Web is yours. It is a public resource on which you, your business, your community and your government depend. The Web is also vital to democracy, a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation. 

The Web is now more critical to free speech than any other medium. It brings principles established in the U.S. Constitution, the British Magna Carta and other important documents into the network age: freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected".

Universality is the key to the ongoing success of the Web and Tim Berners-Lee sees this as being threatened on several fronts.  He is particular concerned about the erosion of open standards because adhering to this principle fosters "serendipitous creation", where an online application could be used in ways no one previously imagined.

Not using open standards creates closed worlds such as those experienced with Apple's iTunes.  Publishers of magazines who are turning to smartphone apps rather than web apps is also a concern as these too are closed off from the web itself.

Amazon is held up as an example of what can be accomplished because of open standards;  they were able to develop as a result of access to free, basic web technologies and standards.

Keeping the Web separate from the Internet is another key ingredient in the ongoing success of the Web.  Separation of these layers is pivotal to fostering creativity.

His concluding statement is perhaps the most visionary:

"The goal of the Web is to serve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot ourselves imagine."

Related articles

• Tim Berners-Lee: Facebook could fragment web (guardian.co.uk)
• Tim Berners-Lee criticises Facebook's 'walled garden' (telegraph.co.uk)
• Berners-Lee Warns Against Facebook "Fragmenting" The Web (allfacebook.com)