![]() ![]() In some cases it may not be possible to bury a cable, for example where there is hard rock. Burial depths vary according to seabed conditions. The plough is towed by a cable ship, like the one above, it lifts a furrow of the seabed and the cable, fed from the ship's hold, slides into this furrow, after the plough passes the part of the seabed that was lifted, it is returned back to the seabed on top of the cable. There are various methods of doing this, but the one most often used is a "cable plough" This is usually on the continental shelf where it is shallow enough for the cable to be damaged by ship's anchors or commercial fishing. How are Cables Installed?Where possible, and necessary, the preferred option is to bury the cables under the sea floor. The remainder being made up of a polyethylene insulating/water proofing material, a copper core (needed to transmit power to signal boosting equipment), and potentially varying combination types of steel armour wires - depending on location and application of the cable on the sea floor.Ĭable Ship towing a plough on the sea bed. Generally submarine cables are no larger than 60mm dia. The number of fibre optic strands in a cable varies, usually dependant on length, from around 4 - 8 for a Trans-Atlantic cable, but up to 200 for a cable across to Europe. To try and quantify that, that is enough capacity to carry 375 million simultaneous telephone conversations on 1 no. The latest technology could potentially provide upwards of sixty 400Gb per second channels down just 1 no. Data can be transmitted along these strands via wavelengths of light, at the speed of light and over hundreds of kilometres without interference.Įach of these fibre optic strands is capable of carrying vast amounts of information. They are the foundations that the UK's future economy will be built upon.įibre Optic Strands What is a Submarine Communications Cable?The common and consistent components of any Submarine Communications Cable are the fibre optics, strands of glass, not much thicker than your hair. As you can see Submarine Telecoms Cables are not just about Facebook and twitter. Potential advantages such as this are driving the build of new Trans-Atlantic Cables. A report by Information Week Magazine advised that in the world of Algorithmic Stock Trading a 1 millisecond speed advantage over a submarine cable from New York to London can be worth £100 million a year to a major brokerage company. It is forecast that by 2016 23% of all purchases in the UK will be done via the Internet.Īs amazing as the figures above are, they do not include international banking and stock trading. A value of £121 billion to the UK, and could rise to £221 billion by 2016. Whereas, in 2012, Boston Consulting Group advised that the Internet contributes to 8.3% of the UK (and 5.3% to the EU) economy. Frontier Economics reported in 2011 that revenues from the UK telecom industry amounted to £39.7 billion. The Internet/digital economy is wide ranging, growing at an enormous rate and is very difficult to measure accurately. ![]() Submarine Communications Cables and the EconomyAs you can see without submarine communications cables the Internet and businesses such as Google and Facebook would not exist. The next time you access Facebook and, perhaps, receive a status update from a friend on holiday in Singapore, read a tweet from a Hollywood star you're following, watch a film on Netflix, place a bet during a football game, listen to a music track on Spotify or iTunes, watch a breaking news story reporting from a location overseas, receive an email, text or just call somebody abroad, it is very likely that you have unknowingly used a submarine communications cable. Notebooks, tablets, smart phones? Note: A smart phone isn't smart if it cannot access the Internet. The average person may well have two or more devices upon their person capable of accessing the web. We now live in a world where, just about, everyone is connected daily to the Internet. In other words telephone conversations, the Internet, emails and television are all reliant on cables. However, as little as 3% of global communications are carried in this way, which means that 97% of the world's communications are transported around the world via fibre optic submarine cables. This phrase over the years cemented itself into the minds of the public, so much so, that even now many people think that global communications are carried via satellite. It was common when watching television at the time, especially live sporting events, to see the phrase live via satellite. Map of the 1858 Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cableĭuring the 1950's through to the 1980's, the co-axial copper cables that were used at the time did not have the capacity to carry anything other than telephony. ![]()
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