Have you ever stopped to wonder how the internet is distributed to the world? It is true that, during a game, for example, that little “lag” ends up getting in the way of your possible victory, you already know what the next step should be: curse, scream and curse madly against the internet world and this damn connection. However, do you know how this information is transmitted? Learn more in full with my special remastered article!
However, sometimes it is also good to think about how the union between real and virtual worlds it's amazing. Yes, because it is thanks to the huge communication structures developed around the world that you can play these games and talk to your friends in the United States, for example.
On the other hand, contrary to what many people imagine, information on the internet is not transmitted only by satellites orbiting the earth, but through a gigantic network of submarine Backbones that crosses the oceans of our Planet Earth.
Before understanding how the transoceanic cables you need to know what the Backbones. In other words, we can say that they are the “backbone” of virtually all information exchanges within the virtual world that we know today.
To give a better example, when you send a message to a friend, for example, this message leaves your computer, passes through modem and is delivered to your internet provider. This company then “dumps” the data into a network of connections able to bring it all to a Backbone.
The Backbone, in turn, works as a main road, that is, a large avenue of fiber optics, which works by transferring information extremely quickly to a new data network – thus making your message successfully delivered to the destination of the form as fast as possible.
Currently, the Backbones not only cross several countries, but also interconnect six of the seven continents of our planet – only the Antarctica does not yet have such a connection. These cables cross the seas across Planet Earth and make the exchange of information between countries fast and (almost always) efficient.
In all, there are thousands of kilometers of optical fiber – which account for approx. 99% of Our Planet Connections. These “submarine cables” have such an incredible total data exchange capacity that, if used all at once, it would already exceed the range of 7 terabytes per second.
In this way, we can see that only 1% of internet is covered by satellites, since they have a much slower connection. In this way, they end up working only as a kind of “plan B”, a guarantee in case of an accident with the cables.
With that, Marine Backbones grow more and more (yes!). Currently, the biggest cable of all is the SeaMeWe 3. It connects no less than 32 countries, starting from Germany and arriving at the city of Keoje, South Korea. In all, the Backbone cable has approximately 39 thousand kilometers in length and about 40 different connection points.
As you might imagine, the installation of subsea Backbones is carried out in a different way. Obviously, human contact is quite “limited” due to the difficulties that the environment provides. Therefore, the first step is to carry out a careful evaluation of the locations that will receive the submarine cables. The path must be as flat as possible, not counting cracks, terrain oscillations or possibilities of tremors that may influence negative way in signal quality.
Then, the next step is to start installing the Backbones. Everything basically happens on two different fronts. While a specialized ship sails slowly unloading meters of cables, a robot-submarine delicately positions them on the sea bed, performing a small excavation and installing them on a sort of “flat” track – not flat land.
Currently, there are plans to further increase the transmission speed, since there are new cables and optical fibers constantly being developed, in addition to the increasing distances covered by Backbones and the intervals between one signal repeater and another. To give you an idea, it is already in development the SeaMeWe 5, a new network with more than 20,000 kilometers and an incredible capacity of 24 terabytes per second (yes!).
And you, what did you think of this curiosity? Share your opinion with us! 🙂
With Important Information: Wikipedia, quora
