Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon Are Quietly Buying Undersea Cables (venturebeat.com) 76
The internet is commonly described as a cloud, writes the consumer policy expert and editor at BroadbandNow, but "In reality, it's a series of wet, fragile tubes, and Google is about to own an alarming number of them."
An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat: Google makes billions from its cloud platform. Now it's using those billions to buy up the internet itself -- or at least the submarine cables that make up the internet backbone. In February, the company announced its intention to move forward with the development of the Curie cable, a new undersea line stretching from California to Chile. It will be the first private intercontinental cable ever built by a major non-telecom company. And if you step back and just look at intracontinental cables, Google has fully financed a number of those already; it was one of the first companies to build a fully private submarine line.
Google isn't alone. Historically, cables have been owned by groups of private companies -- mostly telecom providers -- but 2016 saw the start of a massive submarine cable boom, and this time, the buyers are content providers. Corporations like Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon all seem to share Google's aspirations for bottom-of-the-ocean dominance... We're reaching the next stage of internet maturity; one where only large, incumbent players can truly win in media....
I've been watching this trend develop, being in the broadband space myself, and the recent movements are certainly concerning. Big tech's ownership of the internet backbone will have far-reaching, yet familiar, implications. It's the same old consumer tradeoff; more convenience for less control -- and less privacy... As we look to the future, we need to start asking ourselves what the internet is really going to look like whenever the content services that already command so much of our attention are in control of the internet backbone as well.
"Consumers will soon need to decide exactly how much faith they want to place in these companies to build out the internet of tomorrow."
An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat: Google makes billions from its cloud platform. Now it's using those billions to buy up the internet itself -- or at least the submarine cables that make up the internet backbone. In February, the company announced its intention to move forward with the development of the Curie cable, a new undersea line stretching from California to Chile. It will be the first private intercontinental cable ever built by a major non-telecom company. And if you step back and just look at intracontinental cables, Google has fully financed a number of those already; it was one of the first companies to build a fully private submarine line.
Google isn't alone. Historically, cables have been owned by groups of private companies -- mostly telecom providers -- but 2016 saw the start of a massive submarine cable boom, and this time, the buyers are content providers. Corporations like Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon all seem to share Google's aspirations for bottom-of-the-ocean dominance... We're reaching the next stage of internet maturity; one where only large, incumbent players can truly win in media....
I've been watching this trend develop, being in the broadband space myself, and the recent movements are certainly concerning. Big tech's ownership of the internet backbone will have far-reaching, yet familiar, implications. It's the same old consumer tradeoff; more convenience for less control -- and less privacy... As we look to the future, we need to start asking ourselves what the internet is really going to look like whenever the content services that already command so much of our attention are in control of the internet backbone as well.
"Consumers will soon need to decide exactly how much faith they want to place in these companies to build out the internet of tomorrow."
consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers will soon need to decide exactly how much faith they want to place in these companies to build out the internet of tomorrow.
What if a consumer doesn't have faith ? What options are there to stop this ?
Have the government step in to build it (Score:2, Insightful)
This does require a voting public to be engaged. I think that's doable but we need to get more emphasis on economic issues like this and less on social & wedge issues.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Have the government step in to build it (Score:5, Interesting)
In the United States it is (Score:3)
Re: In the United States it is (Score:2)
That's some hilarious propaganda right there. Right-wing extremists printing our textbooks! The horror!
Meanwhile, over in the real world, teachers are about twice as likely to be democrats as they are republicans, and over 70% describe themselves as either moderate, left, or far-left.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/artic... [edweek.org]
Re: In the United States it is (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
You're information is half a decade out of date. Did you perhaps get it from a Texas textbook?
Two things have significantly dimished the state's influence on textbooks. The first (smaller) influence is that they voted in 2013 or 2014 to allow individual school districts to choose and purchase their own books. The second, is that they banned common-core, so the 45 states that went with common-core will not be using the books made for the Texas marketplace by default.
Re: (Score:1)
but but but THATS SOSHULIZM YOU DIRTY COMMIE!!!
I'm afraid we are well past the point where the government-is-evil reactionaries will allow us to have nice things.
Re: (Score:1)
the corporations currently own our government which equates to fascism. I totally agree but the government needs some honest brokers and stop getting paid from corporations and actually act like the people are their bosses instead of the corporations.
Re: (Score:1)
Found the communist who has nothing to support his own position so he immediately resorts to insults.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well guess why they are doing hey, because then they can data mine you whether or not you want it, privacy invasive cunt in the middle attacks. What can you do about it, nothing. They know you hate their bullshit and they are working around it to continue to do it behind the scenes, a real pack of shit heads. So they want to data mine the internet backbone, you approved it when your ISP agreed to it.
Re: (Score:3)
Ummm... just use a different company who also runs their own cable?
First, this is Google laying one cable. Big deal. Second, there are lots of companies who lay cables, mostly telecoms, because that's the business they're in.
The summary makes it sound like once someone lays a cable, everyone is forced to use it. Back in reality, one more company producing a service (underwater data transport) increases the available options, it doesn't decrease them.
Vertical Integration (Score:1)
The Net Neutrality push and pushback has made the giants very aware how vulnerable they are to the gatekeepers. You bitch and whine about the FCC and American telecom policies, but that's all above board adn clean compared to telecom in Asia and South America.
Wait... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The slant of the headline and the lede paragraph imply that Google (and others) are “buying up” the existing undersea cabling... but what they are actually doing is laying their own new cable.
And this particular new cable brings the number of undersea cables owned by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon to a grand total of...
(Drumroll please)
One.
There are plenty of real reasons to hate on these companies. We don’t need to find made-up reasons for doing so.
Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. They're building new submarine cables? Great. I don't trust anyone to own cables, that's why I use encryption.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps the author considers the current large owners of undersea cables to be more benign... you know, US companies like AT&T and Verizon, or India’s Tata Group.
Corporate ownership of undersea communications cables is nothing new. Heck, the first undersea telegraph cables back in the 1800s were paid for by British industrialists.
Re: (Score:2)
to a grand total of...
(Drumroll please)
One.
Which is completely correct if and only if you ignore any other cables owned by these companies, such as Marea [slashdot.org]. Which, by the way, is currently the fastest undersea cable in the World at 200 Tbps [submarinenetworks.com]. This cable is operated by Telxius (part of Telefonica) and co-owned by Telxius, Facebook and Microsoft.
So yes, other than the fastest undersea cable in the World, your (atm) +4 insightful comment is completely correct.
Re: (Score:2)
So they’re part of a consortium? Big deal. Facebook and Microsoft together only own half the lines in Marea, and they’re not even the ones operating it.
Consortiums are how these cables have generally been handled this whole time - consortiums which include the companies which need the bandwidth. The story was attempting to frame the situation differently.
Re: Wait... what? (Score:2)
Bandwidth != speed
What you're really trying to say is that they own a teeny tiny fraction of total undersea data transmission capacity.
Re: (Score:2)
to a grand total of...
(Drumroll please)
One.
Which is completely correct if and only if you ignore any other cables owned by these companies, such as Marea [slashdot.org]. Which, by the way, is currently the fastest undersea cable in the World at 200 Tbps [submarinenetworks.com]. This cable is operated by Telxius (part of Telefonica) and co-owned by Telxius, Facebook and Microsoft.
So yes, other than the fastest undersea cable in the World, your (atm) +4 insightful comment is completely correct.
So it's actually 2?
They build new cables to handle their own traffic (Score:3)
Ah! Now this is something we should regulate (Score:1)
Now they own the pipe, and that makes a big difference. It's up to us to make sure access is not restricted by content.
Re: (Score:3)
The last thing we need is more regulation.
Nice little business you've got there. I don't suppose you'd mind us collecting a fee to make sure it doesn't burn down.
Shame there isn't a rule against that sort of behavior, right?
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry, this ain't "private"...
So Senator Ted Stevens Was Right (Score:2)
It is nothing but a bunch of tubes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And the tubes are full of cats [blogspot.com].
Re: (Score:2)
So was Ted Stevens.
Buy? Bad. Lay? Good. (Score:3)
If Google were buying up existing cables, I would be worried. But Google laying NEW submarine cables can only be for the good, because there aren't enough.
And some redundancy in cables is DEFINITELY a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it is. If the primary cable is damaged, telcos or the government will be able to lease bandwidth on Google's cables.
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So the owners of this cable can't route their information over the other existing cables if needed? If so, it's still redundancy for them, and they represent a significant percentage of the data flowing between countries.
Interesting (Score:2)
Google stopped the deployment of Fiber to the Home due to the costs of making it happen.
I can't help but think that deploying an undersea cable would be quite the financial undertaking as well.
That got me thinking about why Google would be interested in such things, but the answer came rather quickly.
Considering the amount of traffic that cable would be carrying ( likely all routed through Google owned hardware ) it's a treasure trove for any Company who partakes in the " Big Data " business model of knowin
Re: (Score:2)
They are two different business cases. Google was never really interested in laying optical fiber to every home in an area. They did it in order to spur on their competitors into action.
In laying an undersea cable they actually want the connection and bandwidth that the cable brings. There is no competitor to spur on. They'll be able to move their traffic over that cable, lowering their costs, and charge others for using the cable.
Re: (Score:3)
it's a treasure trove for any Company who partakes in the " Big Data " business model of knowing anything and everything about everyone.
Don't know about US, but EU regulations are not going to allow 3rd party data snooping.
Shills shill shill shills by the shill shore (Score:5, Insightful)
As if people have faith in Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.
Reduced what in the what now?
This is an "article" written by an astroturfing lobbyist. His ideology sells the belief that deregulation solves all problems, yet because he is beholden to his telecom masters, he must also sell the belief that having more competition is also bad.
Wired (Score:1)
And? (Score:3)
It's not really a threat to privacy or security if you have an ounce of either, though, is it?
You're encrypting your traffic, right?
Then one of the primary facets of all modern encryption is that an adversary can read EVERY SINGLE PACKET you send and still be none the wiser as to what you were doing.
If you're properly routing your traffic, encrypting your DNS, etc. etc. then it doesn't matter if Putin himself is delivering the packets.
There may be net-neutrality issues, but there shouldn't be any security issues whatsoever. You should be able to publish your encrypted sessions on the ten o'clock news or in a newspaper... it literally makes no difference to whether or not your data was secure or not.
Not quietly or recent occurrence (Score:1)
Damn, he was right after all (Score:2)
The internet is commonly described as a cloud, writes the consumer policy expert and editor at BroadbandNow, but "In reality, it's a series of wet, fragile tubes
I guess this genius was just ahead of his time [knowyourmeme.com].
Shame on you, those that laughed at him out of ignorance. Revere him as the god-like intelligence that resides on a plane of thought you cannot even comprehend.
Re: What a mess (Score:2)
They are a valued asset which gets liquidated, and operated by another company for profit.
Did you think they lay thousands of miles of cable at the sea floor out of charity?
What control? (Score:1)
What is the author talking about? What control have I ever had about which undersea cable my packet happened to traverse? Its not like Google is putting 'mom and pop' undersea cables out of business! This article seems like it was written by a bot, it uses a bunch of anti-business tropes which don't make sense in this context.