Yeah this is super cool! I hope ISPs will peer well once cable is ready!
(Sent from my mobile device) Anurag Bhatia http://anuragbhatia.com On Mar 23, 2012 5:24 PM, "Eugen Leitl" <eu...@leitl.org> wrote: > > > http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122989-1-5-billion-the-cost-of-cutting-london-toyko-latency-by-60ms > > $1.5 billion: The cost of cutting London-Tokyo latency by 60ms > > By Sebastian Anthony on March 20, 2012 at 1:04 pm > > Arctic Link submarine cable > > Starting this summer, a convoy of ice breakers and specially-adapted polar > ice-rated cable laying ships will begin to lay the first ever trans-Arctic > Ocean submarine fiber optic cables. Two of these cables, called Artic Fibre > and Arctic Link, will cross the Northwest Passage which runs through the > Canadian Arctic Archipelago. A third cable, the Russian Optical > Trans-Arctic > Submarine Cable System (ROTACS), will skirt the north coast of Scandinavia > and Russia. All three cables will connect the United Kingdom to Japan, > with a > smattering of branches that will provide high-speed internet access to a > handful of Arctic Circle communities. The completed cables are estimated to > cost between $600 million and $1.5 billion each. > > All three cables are being laid for the same reasons: Redundancy and speed. > As it stands, it takes roughly 230 milliseconds for a packet to go from > London to Tokyo; the new cables will reduce this by 30% to 170ms. This > speed-up will be gained by virtue of a much shorter run: Currently, packets > from the UK to Japan either have to traverse Europe, the Middle East, and > the > Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, US, and Pacific, both routes racking up > around > 15,000 miles in the process. It’s only 10,000 miles (16,000km) across the > Arctic Ocean, and you don’t have to mess around with any land crossings, > either. > > Russian Optical Trans-Arctic Submarine Cable System (ROTACS) between UK and > JapanThe massive drop in latency is expected to supercharge algorithmic > stock > market trading, where a difference of a few milliseconds can gain (or lose) > millions of dollars. It is for this reason that a new cable is currently > being laid between the UK and US — it will cost $300 million and shave > “just” > six milliseconds off the fastest link currently available. The lower > latency > will also be a boon to other technologies that hinge heavily on the > internet, > such as telemedicine (and teleconferencing) and education. Telephone calls > and live news coverage would also enjoy the significantly lower latency. > Each > of the fiber optic cables will have a capacity in the terabits-per-second > range, which will probably come in handy too. > > Beyond the stock markets, though, the main advantage of the three new > cables > is added redundancy. Currently, almost every cable that lands in Asia goes > through a choke point in the Middle East or the Luzon Strait between the > Philippine and South China seas. If a ship were to drag an anchor across > the > wrong patch of seabed, billions of people could wake up to find themselves > either completely disconnected from the internet or surfing with > dial-up-like > speeds. The three new cables will all come down from the north of Japan, > through the relatively-empty Bering Sea — and the Arctic Ocean, where each > of > the cables will run for more than 5,000 miles, is one of the > least-trafficked > parts of the world. That said, the cables will still have to be laid > hundreds > of meters below the surface to avoid the tails of roving icebergs. > > The ROTACS cable path > > Each cable will be laid by a pair of ships: an ice breaker that leads the > way, and a cable ship. Until now it has been impossible to lay cables in > the > Arctic Ocean, but the retreat of the Arctic sea ice means that the > Northwest > Passage is now generally ice-free from August to October; a big enough > window > that cable can be laid fairly safely. Existing cable ships (and there > aren’t > many of them) are all outfitted for balmier climes, so all three cables > will > require the use of a polar ice-rated ship that has been retrofitted to > carry > cable-laying gear. > > Read more about the secret world of submarine cables. > > For more information on the Russian Optical Trans-Arctic Submarine Cable > System (ROTACS), check out the Polarnet Project (machine translated). > > The Arctic Fibre and Arctic Link websites have information on the North > American cables. > > [Image credit: New Scientist] > >
