intercontinental submarine communication cable - one of the fastest to date - has set a new record. The data transfer rate over fiber, laid along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, was 30 Tbit / s. All thanks to the new generation of Infinera transceivers - Infinite Capacity Engine 6 (ICE6). It is believed that Marea will reach its full potential by 2025.
Lay down at the bottom of the Atlantic
The transcontinental cable has become outstanding from the very beginning. It usually takes about 5 years to lay such lines. The Marea project, the result of the alliance between Microsoft, Facebook and the telecommunications company Telxius, was completed in two years.
The backbone consists of eight pairs of fibers, protected by layers of copper, hard plastic and a waterproof coating. Microsoft and Facebook use two pairs. One pair was acquired by AWS in 2019. The rest are at the disposal of the provider Telxius for rent to smaller companies that cannot afford the whole cable.
The length of the Marea is 6600 km, the average depth is 3.35 km. The highway connects the American and European continents, starting on the coast of Virginia Beach (USA) and ending in Bilbao (Spain). The total weight of the cable exceeds 4500 tons, which is comparable to the weight of 34 blue whales. Moreover, the cable diameter is only 1.5 times larger than that of a conventional garden hose.
According to Microsoft estimates, the data transfer rate of Marea cable is 16 million times faster than the average home Internet. At the start, the throughput of the highway was estimated at 160 Tbit / s (by the way, at this speed you can simultaneously broadcast 71 million videos in HD resolution). But already a year after the cable was put into operation, in 2018, the figure increased to 200 Tbit / s. And a year later, the data transfer rate per pair of fibers reached 26.2 Tbit / s. The growth was due to the new at that time Infinera transceivers - Infinite Capacity Engine 4 (ICE4).
The new record was also made possible by the development of the range of transceivers. With the new ICE6the throughput of a pair of Marea fibers was 30 Tbit / s.
The ICE6 transceiver line rate limit is 800 Gbps in each direction. Now Marea's record rate reaches up to 700 Gbps per link, which is close enough to the maximum. The new ICE6 will also reduce the cost and ease of use of the backbone by reducing modules in coastal transceiver stations by up to 60%.
Transcontinental connections
Today the continents are connected by more than 1.2 million km of submarine fiber optic cables. This length is enough to encircle our planet at the equator about 30 times! The first submarine internet cable was laid in 1988.
It makes no sense to write about the importance of such highways for global communications systems. According to Google estimates, up to 98% of information passes through them. Internet traffic consumption is growing from year to year, so large companies are increasingly planning to lay new submarine communication cables.
So, the same Google announced its intention to lay a cable that will connect the United States, Great Britain and Spain. The highway will be named "Grace Hopper" in honor of the famous scientist and programmer. According to the company, the cable will use the latest technology for signal transmission, but Google has not disclosed details yet. Plans to complete the project by 2022.
Facebook is reuniting not only with Eurasia. In May last year, the social network announced its desirelay 37,000 km of cable to provide Internet access in 16 African countries (1.3 billion inhabitants of the continent). The cable will be laid by Alcatel Submarine Networks, which is owned by Nokia. The speed will not hurt: the communication speed promises to be three times higher than that of the existing submarine cables to Africa. Give me a fast Instagram for Africa!
The main thing is that the plans and integrity of underwater highways are not violated by their main "enemies" - ship anchors, fishing nets and, oddly enough, sharks. The video below shows a funny picture of a shark going to dine with fiber optic cable.
