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Communications Google The Internet

'Massive' Transatlantic Data Cable Landed On Beach In Bude (bbc.com) 106

Posted by BeauHD from the next-gen-communications dept.
Thelasko shares a report from the BBC: A new "massive" undersea transatlantic communications cable has been brought ashore on a beach in Cornwall. The Google data cable, called Grace Hopper, was landed in Bude on Tuesday. Once operational, it would have the capacity to handle "17.5 million people streaming 4K video concurrently," Google bosses said. The cable has been laid between New York in the United States, Bilbao in Spain and Bude over several months, and is expected to be operational in 2022. It was part of a "new generation" of lines that "connect continents along the ocean floor with an additional layer of security beyond what's available over the public internet," Google said. The tech giant has named it Grace Hopper after the American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral. It is about 7,000km (4,350 miles) long and is the company's fourth privately-owned undersea data cable, which transport 98% of international internet traffic around the world.
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'Massive' Transatlantic Data Cable Landed On Beach In Bude More

'Massive' Transatlantic Data Cable Landed On Beach In Bude

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  • Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aliks ( 530618 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @03:26AM (#61797845)
    Could the massive pipeline of Internet traffic be of interest to the equally massive government communications base sitting on the cliffs nearby?
    www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/what-really-goes-gchq-intelligence-2440000

    • Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sxpert ( 139117 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @04:23AM (#61797881)

      so that the GCHQ can tap it :-D

      • Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @06:30AM (#61797981) Homepage Journal

        This is why it's so important to encrypt everything. It's not a perfect defence, they can still do a lot with encrypted data and metadata, and can probably crack a lot of it given some time, but encryption does prevent a lot of mass surveillance and increases the cost to a point where hopefully they have to target their resources.

      • Right. For those who don't know. Spy central is in Bude. Saw the sat dishes myself. "All the infra needed is there". Good hint.
        "Can handle more traffic than everything else combined." Read: copy of everything goes straight to the US.

    • Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by keithdowsett ( 260998 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @04:34AM (#61797887) Homepage

      Well, you see Americans aren't allowed to spy on their own citizens....

    • Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AntisocialNetworker ( 5443888 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @05:16AM (#61797917)

      I wonder how many people clicked on the "I'm OK with cookies" button while reading that URL in horror at surveillance...

    • I'm sure the communications base is there because there are already a whole load of data cables landing in that area.

    • Re:Why land in Bude? (Score:5, Informative)

      by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @06:16AM (#61797967)
      50 3.965' N, 5 42.745 W Land's End, Cornwall, England [wired.com]

      As anyone can see from a map of England, Cornwall is a good jumping-off place for cables across the Atlantic, whether they are laid westward to the Americas or southward to Spain or the Azores. A cable from this corner of the island needs to traverse neither the English Channel nor the Irish Sea, both of which are shallow and fraught with shipping. Cornwall also possesses the other necessary prerequisite of a cable landing site in that it is an ancient haunt of pirates and smugglers and is littered with ceremonial ruins left behind by shadowy occult figures. The cable station here is called Porthcurno.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )

        "nor the Irish Sea, both of which are shallow and fraught with shipping"

        Yeah the Irish Sea is so shallow you can drive a Cadillac across it.

        Well Paul said he could anyway.

        • Most of it is, except for the part Boris Johnson want to dig a tunnel through, which is oddly the deepest part [wikipedia.org] and full of WW2 bombs and nuclear waste.

          Make of that what you will.

      • The story that link points to is well worth a read. Leave it to Neal Stephenson to write an engaging novel about the history and current practice of submarine cabling.

        • Ha! Love your handle. Are you sure you're Neal S. himself?

          I remember reading that article way back in the day when I subscribed to Wired Magazine. Sounds really dry but like you said it's really good. I tossed all my old Wired Magazines decades ago -- except for that one. Still have it in a box out in the garage. Have always thought I would go back and read it again someday.

          That article turned me on to Cryptonomicon, and then other of Neal's books. Thanks for bringing it up.

        • Oddly, he wrote that the C&W college closed in 1970 - I can tell you for a fact that it closed in 1994, as I used to work there! A lot of MI5 types were trained there (and lectured there) too.
      • Thanks for this dude https://cinehub.me/ [cinehub.me]

    • I was wondering why they didn't use the 'traditional' landing point at Porthcurno instead.

    • > The location of Bude was chosen because it was "an ideal, nicely protected beach and adjacent to a lot of the terrestrial infrastructure needed", she added.

      I wonder if GCHQ help out with the commercial success of such a cable? I'm sure they could put their own covert tap on it out at sea somewhere, but why bother if you can pay the owner to send you the data anyway?

      Besides that, I'm unclear how google makes any money off this. Do they just sell bandwidth to other ISPs, or does this cable remain entirel

  • Testing one two three.

  • So unfair (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harold Halloway ( 1047486 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @05:53AM (#61797953)
    The last time I laid a massive cable on Bude beach, I was arrested. It's just one rule for them and another for the rest of us.

    • Not, you idiot. It's because cocktail wieners are not allowed on the beach.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      They played The Twist. So I did The Twist.

      They played Macarena. So I did the Macarena.

      They played Come On Eileen. That's when I got thrown out.

  • How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful? Also, "massive" is now 32 fibers. Considering the difficulty of running the cable in the first place, why is the fiber count so low?

    • Re:Conversion for units? (Score:5, Informative)

      by nagora ( 177841 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @06:27AM (#61797979)

      How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful?

      Well, first divide it by 2 because 4K video is really 2K but that's what happens when you let industries define their own terms (see also: USB)

      • One of Google's previous cables, Dunant, has a 250 Tbit/s bandwidth. I'm not so sure this cable is spec'd at "only" 100 Tbit/s.

      • but that's what happens when you let industries define their own terms

        So that’s why my vacuum says 6hp on the label but runs on a 115V 15A circuit.

        • They don't have any choice. Do you have any idea how massive a truly 6HP vacuum would be? And it would leave shit all over the place instead of cleaning shit up, too.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by rukiddingme ( 5292315 )

          but that's what happens when you let industries define their own terms

          So that’s why my vacuum says 6hp on the label but runs on a 115V 15A circuit.

          Have you ever seen a horse try to suck? They can snort/blow quite well, but they are terrible at sucking. Hence it takes a lot of horses to be equivalent to a modern day vacuum. Or so I was told.

          • Have you ever seen a horse try to suck? They can snort/blow quite well, but they are terrible at sucking. Hence it takes a lot of horses to be equivalent to a modern day vacuum. Or so I was told.

            Oh thank god. I was afraid the extra power was coming from demons who literally drained the souls of any unwary enough to actually use it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Megane ( 129182 )
          I think that means 6 hit points. If you can get it to level up, it will then have between 9 and 12hp.

      • Divide by something closer to 4. Is 4K TV the new standard? The average TV viewer cannot see the different when sitting a couple meters away. On a computer monitor you can tell, because you're close. But for television use it is massive overkill and a huge waste of bandwidth which is already in very short supply (at least it is in technologically backwards places like the US).

      • Yes this 100% right. https://cucotv.net/ [cucotv.net]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Being as it's Google we assume they are talking about YouTube 4k video, which is typically in the 60 mbps range (YouTube states 52-68 mbps variable).

      So 60 * 1.75M = 105 terabits per second, or about 13 terabytes per second.

      • One of Google's previous cables (Dunant) has a 250 Tbit/s bandwidth. I'm not so sure this cable is spec'd at "only" 100 Tbit/s.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful? Also, "massive" is now 32 fibers. Considering the difficulty of running the cable in the first place, why is the fiber count so low?

      There really is no need for more fibers. Usually about half will be spares anyways. You can get a lot of channel though one fiber by multiplexing on color. The amplifiers are basically analog and do not care.

    • How do I convert 4k_video/person to something useful?

      47 Kilolibrariesofcongress per second.

  • I am really pleased they chose to honor Admiral Grace Hopper. She was an amazing person. Does everyone know the story of the one microsecond of wire?
  • It's about time that the possibility of a Carrington event was factored into the design of cables and the accompanying electronics. Yes, I realise that this could be exploited for evil purposes.

    • It's about time that the possibility of a Carrington event was factored into the design of cables and the accompanying electronics.

      It's an... undersea.... fiber optic... cable bundle.

      You have no idea what a Carrington event actually entails, do you?

      • Well, what about the following article? https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]

        • Well, what about the following article? https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]

          Abdu Jyothi seems to think undersea cable operators don't know how to shut off the power. They're powered by up to 15 kV of DC potential. It's unknown what voltages were developed in telegraph lines during the Carrington event, but undersea fiber optic cables are powered by a copper sheath. That sheath can be grounded at each end during a Carrington event, preventing buildup of damaging voltages. Service will be interrupted but there will be no damage.

          Every assessment I've ever seen of possible damage f

      • You are aware that fiberoptic cables this long have electronics? Every 50 km or so, a repeater is installed. This is powered from the cable endpoints via a copper wire or sheath in the cable.

  • Clickbait (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @07:18AM (#61798035)

    When reading the title, I immediately assumed some fisherman accidentally dragged an existing cable to the harbour. (has British spelling because of Cornwall)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

      Referring to everything in the past tense was weird.

      • I felt that apologizing for British spellling was weird. Are there roving gangs of angry Merkins thrashing people for not spelling things properly (despite Merkins being bad spellers on average)? That said, I used the British term "thrashing" because the post was about an article that was about a Cornubian beach...

    • Thanks for this information. https://rokkr.me/ [rokkr.me]

  • ...data siphoning.

  • I can't wait until the Internet becomes sentient and destroys us all to save the planet.

    • I don't think humans are any danger to the planet. We are just a bit of scum on the surface of the rock.

      • The planet will exist for quite a while with or without us. It's the state of the biome that will fluctuate and/or end depending on what we do in the next few years / decades. We're the only species on the planet that has the ability to completely destroy the biosphere. And apparently we're determined to keep throwing our weight around until we do.

        • I entirely agree. This motivates the idea of stewardship. That is, because humans have so much power, we have responsibility for our actions, far more than other creatures, such as whales, chimpanzees, or magpies. This is not a new concept. I think Genesis in the Bible is based on the idea of stewardship. But we don't need a God to tell us to take care of the world. The world is a nicer place to live in if nasty things don't happen. Impossible dream, but worth aiming for, instead of just being a selfish bas

      • No, but we are a nuisance to our future AI overlords!

        • I have been practising for years to be a bloody nuisance. Professionally, I Do Useful Things, and I get paid to do that. In my spare time, I contemplate the human condition, make horrible music, insult politicians, and do all of the things that nurture a healthy democratic society. I have yet to come across an AI algorithm that can take the piss out of Boris Johnson. I think a computer taking the piss out of Donald Trump is feasible, but I haven't got the funding yet.

    • "How about a nice game of lying down and playing dead, Doctor Falken?"

  • It's pronounced b-you-d....not bood.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "17.5 mil people streaming 4K video concurrently"

    How many terabits per second would that be?

  • I'll see myself out.

  • So, 17.5 million 4K streams simultaneously, eh? I'm old enough to remember a time when the high school math teacher in charge of the school's PDP-11/44, IMSAI 8080, and TRS-80 Model 1's would ream you out for using them for what he considered frivolous stuff e.g. playing or even writing games. He's probably rolling over in his urn seeing the immense volume of frivolous bandwidth usage. Use your imagination for examples.

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