Google and Facebook Turn Their Backs On Undersea Cable To China (techcrunch.com) 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google and Facebook seem to have resigned themselves to losing part of the longest and highest profile internet cable they have invested in to date. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week, the two companies requested permission to activate the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) between the US and the Philippines and Taiwan, leaving its controversial Hong Kong and Chinese sections dormant. Globally, around 380 submarine cables carry over 99.5 percent of all transoceanic data traffic. Every time you visit a foreign website or send an email abroad, you are using a fiber-optic cable on the seabed. Satellites, even large planned networks like SpaceX's Starlink system, cannot move data as quickly and cheaply as underwater cables.
When it was announced in 2017, the 13,000-kilometer PLCN was touted as the first subsea cable directly connecting Hong Kong and the United States, allowing Google and Facebook to connect speedily and securely with data centers in Asia and unlock new markets. The 120 terabit-per-second cable was due to begin commercial operation in the summer of 2018. Instead, it has been PLCN itself that has been disrupted, by an ongoing regulatory battle in the US that has become politicized by trade and technology spats with China.
When it was announced in 2017, the 13,000-kilometer PLCN was touted as the first subsea cable directly connecting Hong Kong and the United States, allowing Google and Facebook to connect speedily and securely with data centers in Asia and unlock new markets. The 120 terabit-per-second cable was due to begin commercial operation in the summer of 2018. Instead, it has been PLCN itself that has been disrupted, by an ongoing regulatory battle in the US that has become politicized by trade and technology spats with China.
coronavirus? (Score:2)
I get being cautious, but i'm pretty sure this is not the type of virus that could be spread by undersea cable. =/
Re: (Score:2)
Um, no.
Remember that an enormous amount of foreign domain registered servers are domiciled in the USA. This is part of what TechCrunch gets wrong.
Not lighting that part of the circuit described, also means that routing control always uses an intermediary BGP control between the YouEssAy and China. There could be good reasons for that.
Re: (Score:1)
Next thing you know (Score:3)
Some lout will show up and announce that they're building a hydrospace bypass, and what do you mean you haven't heard about it? It's been on file at your local planning office...
shooting their own feet (Score:2)
get the mid to long-term popcorn and watch the US isolating themselves trying to isolate the rest of the world, here: China
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because satelites can never provide enough bandwidth, and wireless mesh cannot scale to an entire country.
Turning their backs? (Score:3)
Turning on what they can means they are giving up on the rest?
You idiots. That's not what that means.
Of course wires are faster. (Score:2)
Globally, around 380 submarine cables carry over 99.5 percent of all transoceanic data traffic. Every time you visit a foreign website or send an email abroad, you are using a fiber-optic cable on the seabed. Satellites, even large planned networks like SpaceXâ(TM)s Starlink system, cannot move data as quickly and cheaply as underwater cables.
Satellite links are not replacements for undersea cables, and I don't recall anyone claiming that they were. Satellites are for the "last mile", not the long haul. Satellite is a technology that competes with municipal WiFi, cellular, cable, DSL, ISDN, and even old school dial-up. From the satellite the link will want to get to the biggest and closest wired link it can find. Satellite links are inherently expensive, which means this is a path of last resort.
That is unless I'm missing something very impo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Faster means nothing when you're overloaded. The bandwidth available does not compete with fiber. The difference in latency is utterly meaningless.
Good article (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This could get interesting (Score:3)
Wouldn't it be interesting if Trump decided to use those assets to cut all undersea cables from the USA to China, or maybe Phillipines to China, or whatever. Not sure how anyone could prove anything....
CSB: Evidently my dad worked with Howard Hughes to tap an undersea cable back in the 60s or 70s. He never met HH, he was just on the project. It was classified to hell and back. How did I find out? When my dad was halfway through losing his mind my wife and I took him out to dinner for his birthday. My wife was in sales and knew how to extract information from people. His mind was at the point where he forgot about his Top Secret clearance (not sure of the level, but he had a pretty high clearance), but remembered the stories. And he'd evidently been wanting to tell the tale for years. She got that, and several other stories, out of dad in that restaurant. I wish to hell I'd recorded that dinner, 6 months later he couldn't carry a conversation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If I found a covert listening device labeled "Property of X," my first assumption would be that the label is intentional misdirection.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
References or it didn't happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be interesting if Trump decided to use those assets to cut all undersea cables from the USA to China, or maybe Phillipines to China, or whatever. Not sure how anyone could prove anything....
The last thing we want is to start WW3 by every country going around cutting each other's cables until one gets caught. Cyber attacks can be considered an act of war and with the economic damage this would do there would have to be some retaliation.
As for tapping, the Chinese have made huge strides in the development of quantum crypto. They seem ready for this kind of attack. If Google and Facebook don't light up this cable I'm sure the Chinese will install their own soon anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
The Chinese say they've made big strides in quantum, but then they claim great strides in many things, not all of them backed by fact.
Good thinking about security (Score:1)
Imagine how fast corona and T viruses will spread, if that missing link gets activated.
What's the big deal? (Score:2)
Its a cable from the US to China. One can assume that no matter who owns or controls it, whatever flows over it will be open to the Chinese at their end anyway when it hits Chinese networks.
So it shouldn't matter if the Chinese own it and can tap it somewhere in the middle (or even spy on it via the gear at the US end)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So it shouldn't matter if the Chinese own it and can tap it somewhere in the middle (or even spy on it via the gear at the US end)
Have you read the linked to article? Do you understand how this technology works?
Of course not, this is slashdot!
First off, you can't just "tap it somewhere in the middle" - it is a transoceanic fiber optic cable, to "tap it" would require a massive effort that would be wildly complex and expensive, especially when the data flowing across the fiber is much more easily available on the China side of the cable (they have no access to the US end of the cable, but the data on the fiber is identical at both ends
it seems to me that now there is a certain redistr (Score:1)
Oh look, another crappy headline on /. (Score:2)
From the linked-to article:
Google and Facebook saw the writing on the wall. On January 29 last week, representatives from the two companies – but not PLDC – met with FCC officials to propose a new approach. A filing, made the same day, requests permission to operate just the two PLCN fiber pairs owned by the American companies: Google’s link to Taiwan, and Facebook’s to the Philippines.
[...]
The filling goes on to describe how each fiber pair has its own terminating equipment, with Google’s and Facebook’s connections arriving at Los Angeles in cages that are inaccessible to the other companies. “PLDC is contractually prohibited from using its participation interest in the system to interfere with the ownership or rights of use of the other parties,” it notes.
So Google and Facebook plan on using their fiber pairs, they are "turning their backs" on nothing - they own those two pairs and want to use them, the PLDC, their partner in the "undersea cable to China" (the PLCN) in being prevented from using their 4 fiber pairs by US regulators.
Explained simply, the the PLCN is a bundle of six distinct fiber pairs, one pair is owned by Facebook, one pair is owned by Google, and the remaining four pairs are owned by PLDC, a Chinese organization