WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.240 We've gotten very used to a world of wireless electronics, but did you know that most of 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:10.520 the global internet still depends on running cables over really, really long distances? 00:00:10.520 --> 00:00:15.560 There are so many undersea internet cables sitting on the ocean floor that the map of 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:19.840 them kind of looks like a plate of spaghetti, whether you're looking off the Cape of Good 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:24.240 Hope or off the northern coast of Russia, where there's a cable that's aptly called 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:30.160 the Polar Express. And it turns out that undersea communications cables aren't even anything new. 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:35.800 In fact, the first commercial cable was laid all the way back in 1850, connecting England 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:41.000 and France. Though, of course, that cable was intended for Telegraph, as they weren't exactly discussing 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:48.640 a Victorian Affairs of State over Twitter. Now unfortunately, some fishers actually cut that cable a few short weeks later. 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:53.840 But you can't stop progress, and more submarine cables started popping up, with the first 00:00:53.840 --> 00:01:00.200 transatlantic cable becoming operational in 1858, though it took around two minutes 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:04.200 to transmit just one character between the continents. 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:10.560 Of course, it didn't stay that slow for long. As our understanding of the way electricity works over long distances increased, we got 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:15.920 to the point where we could carry full-on voice calls under the ocean with copper coaxial 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:21.600 cables by the 1950s, though unsurprisingly, those don't provide the necessary bandwidth 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:30.160 to carry global internet traffic. Enter fiber optic technology, which powers every undersea cable that is still operating. 00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:36.040 Fiber optics work by converting information into light waves, but because this light attenuates 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:40.760 a distance, similarly to how a flashlight becomes impossible to see when you get far 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:45.320 enough away from it, repeaters need to be installed at intervals along these cables 00:01:45.320 --> 00:01:49.800 to amplify the light and ensure that it gets all the way down the pipe. 00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:54.320 And although fiber at home is still a luxury for many, undersea fiber started appearing 00:01:54.320 --> 00:02:01.080 in the late 80s. Originally it also mostly carried voice calls, but now that fiber forms the backbone of the 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:05.520 global internet. Improvements in the materials that we use to construct these cables have resulted in 00:02:05.520 --> 00:02:10.640 them getting literally a million times faster since that time. 00:02:10.640 --> 00:02:16.320 We've gone from the original TAT 8 cable, carrying 280 megabits per second to the new 00:02:16.440 --> 00:02:24.360 Grace Hopper cable, laid in September 2021, carrying 352 terabits per second. 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:30.360 That is over 350,000 times faster than a normal home gigabit connection. 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:35.040 The question is, how do we keep undersea cables from failing all the time? 00:02:35.040 --> 00:02:40.040 The seafloor is a far cry from the secured climate-controlled data centers that we're 00:02:40.040 --> 00:02:43.680 used to thinking of when we hear the word internet infrastructure. 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:49.040 While the cables are wrapped up and insulated quite securely against any number of hazards, 00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:54.280 at the very center of the cable are the optical fibers that carry the actual data and copper 00:02:54.280 --> 00:03:02.240 tubing that provides power. These guts of the cable are wrapped up in plastic and aluminum to prevent water ingress. 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:06.600 But the cable still needs to be toughened up to withstand other physical hazards. 00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:12.600 Nylon and tar can provide additional protection, and thick steel wires serve as armor against 00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:17.000 fishing boats, anchors, and even the occasional shark bite. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:21.120 And yes, sharks have been observed nibbling on these cables every now and then. 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:28.640 But that doesn't make the cables invincible. They do still sustain damage and even break completely sometimes, causing slowdowns like 00:03:28.640 --> 00:03:35.760 we saw in South Africa in 2020. Fortunately, the internet works in such a way that data can simply take another route 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:40.240 to its destination while the cable is being fixed, which typically involves a repair ship 00:03:40.320 --> 00:03:44.920 dragging the two broken ends of the cable up from the seafloor and splicing them back 00:03:44.920 --> 00:03:51.040 together. But hold on a second. With all the satellites that we have floating around in space and services like Starlink 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:56.240 being released, are these cables in danger of being replaced by wireless solutions? 00:03:56.240 --> 00:04:02.440 Not anytime soon. Even though wireless data transfer over distances is much better than it used to be, cables 00:04:02.440 --> 00:04:07.720 are still much faster, much lower latency, and way cheaper. 00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:12.360 It's kind of like Ethernet versus Wi-Fi, but on a way larger scale. 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:17.400 In fact, several of the fastest cables aren't even owned by old school telecom companies. 00:04:17.400 --> 00:04:22.080 They were instead laid by newer companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook to improve 00:04:22.080 --> 00:04:29.400 efficiency in their cloud data centers. So the undersea cables look like they're here to stay, at least until the fish that 00:04:29.400 --> 00:04:33.440 we eat learn to use garden shears and exact revenge on all of us. 00:04:33.440 --> 00:04:37.200 Thanks for watching guys, like the video, or dislike if you didn't like it so much. 00:04:37.200 --> 00:04:41.000 Check out our other videos if you did like it, and comment with a video suggestion if 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.120 you have a future concept you'd like to see us cover.