The Men Who Fix the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those undersea cables breaking? PopSci.com introduces John Rennie, who '... has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by UK-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie — a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman — patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables.' The article goes on to outline the physical infrastructure of the Internet, including some of its points of vulnerability."

Catchy job title...

Grounds keeper Willie of the undersea cables, at your service.

Is it worth it?

While there is loads of critical data that goes through these cables, I feel bad when these guys are working their asses off to make sure that 4chan or youtubes of a chimpanzee riding on a segway gets to its proper place.

Another underappreciated job

This is yet another example of the jobs which we rely on everyday but don't give much thought to. Also, this make me really think there is a great job out there to fit everyone. (When the economy improves that is.)

57-year-old Scotsman

Gimme Terabit factor nine! Kirk to Engineering, I need more downloads, Scotty!

Aye Captain, but I don't know if my poor cables will take more.

Stevens was right all along

Holy crap! The Internet *is* a series of tubes! Evidence:Image from TFA [popsci.com]

Neal Stephenson's Mother Earth, Motherboard

...is a cool article up on Wired [wired.com] (look for the printable link option so it's all on one page) detailing an interesting adventure around the world and some of the history of undersea cables. Definitely worth a read.

So this is the guy I need to send my users to

Everytime we have a connectivity hiccup I am flooded with calls from our users asking "Is the Internet broken?"

It takes everything in my power not to say "Yes. The Internet is, in fact, broken"

Your doing it wrong

From TFA:

"If terrorists managed to gain remote access to a facility's command-and-control system, they could, for example, cause the generators to overheat and explode."

If you can make a generator explode on command, you really are doing it wrong. Backup generators may be able to be remotely started, stopped, switched in/out and checked but you should not be able to do the equivalent of burnouts with them.

Additionally, the article states that catastrophic failures would start to creep in after ~2 days of no human maintenance. WTF? Most exchanges and data centres I've been in are ghost ships 350 days a year aside from upgrades and config changes, how is it that such critical hardware can't tick over by itself for a month or so without going nipples skyward?

Hell, the average telephone exchange, if you nuked everything around it, would be giving dialtone and DSL to the skeletons for at least a week, probably more depending on how much diesel is in the tanks.

Re:Your doing it wrong

Hell, the average telephone exchange, if you nuked everything around it, would be giving dialtone and DSL to the skeletons for at least a week, probably more depending on how much diesel is in the tanks.

During the northeast blackout of '03, all of the utilities went out. Street lights, traffic signals, all went dark. Cell phone towers went out. There wasn't enough water pressure beyond 5 stories. There was gas, but no starter. But there was still a dialtone through the landline. And we could still make calls out, if our phone didn't require an external power source. Most of the handsets we use are cordless, but we have several of the simpler phones lying around for such emergencies.

Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses

Dragging an anchor isn't something you try to do. It's something that happens when the weather is more then the anchor can handle. Better to drag the anchor then to rip the anchor capstan off the boat. Funny how boats and cables both anchor near the shore ... you know, that place where people are.

Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses

You anchor down if it's stormy and you can't escape it. With strong currents or wind you might end up dragging the anchor. That's the only explanation I have.

Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses

You anchor down if it's stormy and you can't escape it.

That's pretty much it. The last thing a skipper enjoys is to be pinned against a lee shore by a gale. If he can't get into the safety of deep water, dropping the hook is sometimes the only option. Sometimes, if his hook is too small or if its chain is too short for the wind/current load, it'll drag. It's not a fun situation to be in; I've been there.

Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses

> Sometimes, if his hook is too small or if its chain is
> too short for the wind/current load, it'll drag

The interesting thing is that it's the weight of the chain that holds the anchor, not one of the flukes catching on something. A successful anchoring is when the anchor is on the bottom, in mud, and there are xx fathoms of chain piled up on top of it. Leastwise, 'twas so in my day.

Once we were getting underway for a dependent's cruise and the CO was on the bridge and shouted "let's go!" and clapped his hands. An alert bridge talker heard him, misunderstood, and dutifully relayed "let go!" to the foc'sle. So the anchor was dropped about 100 yards off the pier (at 4-5 knots) and fun times ensued. The CO handled it well and had the grace to make a sheepish announcement a few minutes later on the 1MC. Good times.

Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses

Don't be so harsh. In English it's "preventative" maintenance. I would guess in US English it's "preventive" (I didn't know that, so thanks)

Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses

Did you never waatch Pirates of the Carribean? I seem to remember the equivalient of a hand-brake turn using anchor.

Perhaps they used an internet cable to stop

Re:What about satellites?

Latency is a huge problem with that idea buddy.

Re:What about satellites?

There are enough satellites up there that we can get *some* communications without cables. Those satellite links suck at the best of times, though - if nothing else they have horrible latency, and can't approach the huge bandwidth of an undersea cable full of optic fibres. Just like in your own apartment, wireless is cool for convenience and for when you have a kitten (or fishing trawler) messing with your wiring, but cabling is always faster and better for fixed installations.

Re:What about satellites?

Obviously the fix would be to pull backup cables to the satellites instead of relying on that crappy wireless.

Since planes don't have anchors, it would be failsafe.

Re:What about satellites?

One HUGE propblem with satcoms, and why satcom pretty much went away for telephone - latency. A geosync sat orbits at 26200 miles (roughly), making a 2 way trip (up and down) a 52400 mile trip from point A to point B, or making it take a tad over .28 seconds. Now wait for your ACK to come back, another .28 seconds, and think about what you have. A slow, limited bandwith link. Generally, Satcoms have become used in one way "broadcast" type trasmissions (send the 30 minute TV show up, don't worry about the 1/4 second, as they are recording on the toher side) OR "Ad-hoc" communications, where you don't KNOW where the other station will be (a ship on the ocean, a TV news crew that is in Akron today, and Iowa next week, and even then, they try to keep the signals off the birds unless it's breaking news. You try to get it to a local affiliate, and land line it back)

Re:What about satellites?

Iridium puts its satellites in low earth orbits to avoid the latency issue. It's geosynch orbits that are up high. But I do remember making telephone calls that went over geosynch satellite back in the 80's, and the latency is really annoying - you're never quite sure when the other person is finished talking, so you end up talking over each other, and having awkward pauses. When fibre became common, most telcos stopped using satellite.

Re:What about satellites?

Correct. I forgot to bring up the Low Earth Orbit Sat Phones (aka Iridium), which is another kettle of fish. The big problem there is limited channels, again, your not going to have the kind of bandwith you need for serious internet (note, I said serious, like multiple OC3 stuff).

Interestingly, NATO, with all their Sats, and Iridium (Remember, the US Military basically keeps them in business) is re-looking at HF radio comms. Ultra high speed 24 bit DSPs, and other technologies are making them clearer and more reliable (less dependent on operator skill), and they have the advantage of working when you have a limited sky view

Re:What about satellites?

Oh those kids! Never had to work with a megabit satellite link connected somewhere in Africa and try to send VoIP to America, haven't you?
The latency is not the only problem, there are magnetic storms, other satellites crossing into the sight of yours, bad weather, and so much other crap that I can't even remember.
That is why we need thick undersea cables or all your beautiful iPhones and other gadgets will be rendered totally useless...

Re:Why not use Satellites?

I might be walking into a woosh here; but radio waves are (or rather carry) data that travels at the speed of light(plus, the speed of light is higher in a vacuum than in fiber). What really kills you with satellites is the distance.

Re:Why not use Satellites?

You are correct, grasshopper. The speed at which light or radio waves propagate in a medium is determined by that medium's index of refraction, which (as you stated) is 1 for a vacuum. A typical value for fiber is 1.47, so the signal in the fiber travels only 68% as fast as the radio wave in a vacuum. The distances involved with geosynchronous orbits, however, make up for that slower speed. In the time it takes the radio wave to reach the satellite (35,786 km / 300,000 km/s = 119 mS), the fiber signal could've circled the Earth 1.2 times (119 mS * 204,082 km/s = 24,286 km (Diameter of the Earth is approx 20,000 km).

Re:Seafloorskeeper Rennie

That would be 'didna'. Dinna means don't. In fact let me fix that for you, Glaswegian style:

I didna baw when ma da was chibbed fur nickin a pig, but am bawlin now :(

Getting chibbed is of course being stabbed with a sharp implement, but it works better since we haven't hung anyone in Scotland for quite some time.