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Hash: SHA1>In the Med/IO cable case, a ship dropped an anchor on the cable,
>something that is 1:1,000,000 shot, but happens. [...]Isn't that exactly what happened with the Pakistan fiber in 2005
with SEAMEWE-3?
The 1:1,000,000 was without a reference so it was fugurative. Mea
Culpa. If you count the amount of cables and the anchor drop cuts,
it's probably much less as an afterthought.
From what I read about this cut, the way it happened seemed to have
figurative odds of 1:1,000,000. It looks like "authorities" moved the
anchorage area for some undefined reason. Cables are documented on
marine charts and, at least theoretically under international
standards, Captains and Pilots are lawfully required to refer to them
before dropping the hook. Having some experience in marine operations,
it would be 'curious' for a Captain or Pilot to not notice that there
was a cable marking so close to their re-designated anchorage based on
the chart that they would need to refer to for low tide depths and
other (un)common hazards to insure that they weren't in imminent
danger.
I'm sure that there is more to this story than meets the eye.
-M<
From what I read about this cut, the way it happened seemed to have
figurative odds of 1:1,000,000. It looks like "authorities" moved the
anchorage area for some undefined reason. Cables are documented on
marine charts and, at least theoretically under international
standards, Captains and Pilots are lawfully required to refer to them
before dropping the hook. Having some experience in marine operations,
it would be 'curious' for a Captain or Pilot to not notice that there
was a cable marking so close to their re-designated anchorage based on
the chart that they would need to refer to for low tide depths and
other (un)common hazards to insure that they weren't in imminent
danger.
I'll leave the international law opinions to the lawyers rather than the network engineers 
I'm sure that there is more to this story than meets the eye.
Single cable cuts are very interesting anymore because most networks have figured out most of those issues, usually by network darwinism. Stuff
breaks "normally." There are the usual exception to the rule networks.
What makes this incident more interesting, as I indicated if its not one cable its another cable, was the double international cable cuts.
Likewise, what made Tawain 2006 interesting wasn't an earthquake affected
a cable, but there were multiple cable cuts in the region.
Quick, everyone get out your international cable maps and speculate
where in the world the next double (or triple, quad, etc) cable cut
could happen. Due to regional politics, I don't think there are many
overland geographic diverse routes between countries to backup the
undersea routes. If I remember the Wired article, FLAG did try to
build some overland geographic diversity through the region.
Stuff happens. Although it will take a couple of weeks to repair these
cables (which seems to be the new "normal" repair time), I expect most
user traffic will be re-routed through less optimal but functional
routes within a few days. Again, with the usual exception to the
rule networks.
I think more interesting is the landing stations where numerous cables intersect. They may be diverse in the water, but they cluster around each other when they hit the landing stations.
-Hank
Exactly; which have historically been in the same strategic locations. Suez, Singapore, Cape Town; it’s the strategic map of the British Empire. “Five strategic keys lock up the world”, as Lord Fisher said. (Dover, Gibraltar, Singapore, Cape Town, and Suez).
The similarity is truly uncanny.
They aren't that diverse in the water either and many cables cross
each other and cluster before they hit landing stations including out
in the middle of the sea. The Teleography maps, for example, are not
route maps, they are showing a cable A and Z end with a relative
route. The International Cable Protection Committee has some literal
maps available that show just how much of a mess it all is.
US East Coast to UK West Coast is a great example.
-M<
Well, take a look at this map and tell me how many TransAtlantic landing stations are within several kilometers of each other.
Look at how the TransAtlantic cables converge to landing points (except for Hibernia).
http://www.kisca.org.uk/Web_SWApproaches.pdf
These maps are used by UK and Irish fishing boats to avoid the undersea cables.
Regards,
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck@erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’’ Albert Einstein.
Cables are mostly damaged by fishing in coastal areas (continental shelf) or by deep undersea currents that erode the polyurethane jacket that protects them. So it is crucial that the cable be buried at least one meter and preferably two meters in coastal waters. The big fishing boats scrape sea floor - the ecological equivalent of surface or ‘strip’ mining. These boats scrap the ocean floor and can hit the cables or even sever them.
And consequently, the cables themselves have thicker and more rugged cladding in the coastal waters. A thick armor in the deep sea is simply too expensive and makes it difficult to raise the cable out of the water and repair it. Too much ‘tension’ according to the sailors that operate the ships that lay and repair these systems.
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck@erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’’ Albert Einstein.
http://www.kisca.org.uk/Web_SWApproaches.pdf
And if you enlarge the map, you can see little dots on the lines representing the cables that denote repairs.
Lots and lots of repairs. Treacherous waters.
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck@erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’’ Albert Einstein.
The distances are consistent with repeaters/op amps. And the chart
legend notates the same.
Coincidentally, Telecom Egypt announced a new cable to be built by
Alcatel-Lucent this morning. TE North, which looks like it's going
from Egypt to France, is an 8 pair system (128 x 10Gb/s x 8).
Thanks for your input.
-M<
I think you need to zoom right in and look for yellow dots, rather than red
dots.
Simon
Today's NY Times reports that the problem was caused by two
near-simultaneous cable failures:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/worldbusiness/31cable.html
Hi Martin,
Look more closely. I agree the red dots are repeaters. The yellow dots are repairs. And the yellow dots are bunched, which what you would expect for repairs. Not evenly spaced.
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck@erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’’ Albert Einstein.
In some areas, shark bites are a threat, too -- see
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel1/48/1267/00029600.pdf
(subscription required for the full text), or
http://www.tscm.com/phone/oceanic_cable.html
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Of course, we all know the Mossad (Israeli secret services) and CIA did it as part of the global conspiracy against the Middle East and Third World …
In recent years I have restrained myself, but from time to time the ‘old Rod Beck’ manages to evade the supervision of the Super Ego (presumably you know your Freudian psychology).
But seriously, double failures occur all the time. TAT-14 went dark for over 24 hours on December 28, 2003 when one cable was damaged and the switch of traffic to the other cable caused the second cable to experience a repeater failure.
Probability dictates that the improbable will happen given enough time. The improbable is unlikely, not impossible.
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck@erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’’ Albert Einstein.
I agree, there should be a sanity check as I understand that they are
within close proximity of each other. Two ships slipping anchors and
causing cable breaks in the same area is odd, but if there's a storm
in the area, that would not be that much of a surprise. There should
be some logic to the madness.
I think that the moral of the story is that "more" operators should
try to better understand what diversity means beyond the metro. The
challenge is getting the information. The Teleography series of
internet/sub maps are interesting. They don't demonstrate diversity
though, since they show figurative routing. Those nice and straight
lines are a pipe dream.
-M<
-M<
Well, when you have all these cables running through narrow straits or converging to the same stretch of beach, it does not strike me as at all extraordinary.
An important factor is cooperation. Is there cooperation between the fiber optic guys and fishing associations to minimize hits?
I would wager there is close to zero.
Roderick S. Beck
Director of European Sales
Hibernia Atlantic
1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com
Wireless: 1-212-444-8829.
Landline: 33-1-4346-3209.
French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97.
AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth
rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com
rodbeck@erols.com
``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’’ Albert Einstein.
But they aren't near each other.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/worldbusiness/31cable.html
says that the first two cuts were in the Mediterranean, near Marseille
and Alexandria; the third was in the Persian Gulf, near Dubai
(http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Internet-Outages.html).
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Martin Hannigan wrote:
"Does look normal to me" is far from a global conspiracy theory.
Thank you for the translation but I think you got it wrong.
I agree, there should be a sanity check as I understand that they are
within close proximity of each other. Two ships slipping anchors and
causing cable breaks in the same area is odd, but if there's a storm
in the area, that would not be that much of a surprise. There should
be some logic to the madness.I think that the moral of the story is that "more" operators should
try to better understand what diversity means beyond the metro. The
challenge is getting the information. The Teleography series of
internet/sub maps are interesting. They don't demonstrate diversity
though, since they show figurative routing. Those nice and straight
lines are a pipe dream.-M<
-M<
Well, when you have all these cables running through narrow straits or
converging to the same stretch of beach, it does not strike me as at
all extraordinary.An important factor is cooperation. Is there cooperation between the
fiber optic guys and fishing associations to minimize hits?I would wager there is close to zero.
Roderick S. Beck
Wouldn't that be a pretty narrow tightrope to walk from a
security standpoint? The undersea cable maps are deliberately vague,
specifically to try to avoid making them easy targets of terrorism.
Which is the bigger threat? Boat anchors and fishing nets because of
inaccurate maps or deliberate sabotage because of accurate maps? I
guess you pick your poison.
Andrew
...don't we rehash these same issues every time there's an undersea cable
failure?