US to Europe connection?

[gustav]

How is the US and Europe connected? I read here that we're connected ona 10Gigabit connection, but it doesnt explain what kind of connection. Is it Satellite or a line under the ocean or what?! I'm interested and can't find much in the first 5 pages of a Google search

 

[SavageBasher]

I say its sat. People even here in the US can get a 3meg connection using sat. The latency will suck, but the throughput can possibly be better than a dsl/cable in the same area.

 

[gustav]

how the hell can satellite get 10gigabit/sec???

I know of someone who has/had sat. connection. same rated bandwidth as cable, but he could get no less than 800ms in game servers. im downloading a game from a european server and my latency is 140...if they are on sat. it should be 800 by your logic.

and by the way, lower latency does provide more bandwidth, at least with ram. its been proven.

 

[TimDgsr]

my vote is a line, under the ocean.

it's a guess of course, but i'd bet my toes that it isn't a sat connection.

 

[SavageBasher]

more bandwidth, because there is less waiting for the next bit/packet. lower latency will provide a higher rate of speed on an in out in out in out in out setup, like ram. But, if you are transferring a large file, it won't matter if your latency is 1ms or 1 second, because the bits/packets are only going in one direction, with the common "did you get that" packet in between the two computers.

 

[gustav]

the latency is still an issue though and does provide more bandwidth. even if your just downloading. its sending it in several small packets. to send each it has to go through that latency cycle, so if its slower, aka satellite, its going to take longer.

 

[SK8]

Its a oceanic fibre line i belive bc its the speed of light transfer.

 

[David]

It must be something of a lower latency that Satellite. Im in the UK and if I ping, say, www.overclockers.com, I get an average ping of 96ms.

I also doubt there is one single connection. I would bet the main connection would be some sort of undersea cable, with maybe a few sat links as well.

 

[SniperXX]

My Cisco teacher said something about them using lots of fiber. There is 10gb fiber (OC192) so that option seems the most reasonable. I cant ask him tho cuz I won't see him til school starts back up for me in Aug..

Plus the sat way isnt possible, latency would be sky high. Plus I dont think the current technology for sat. is anywhere that fast.

 

[SavageBasher]

Ok, my bad.

 

[b0bby]

interesting topic. whenever i dl from european or asian locations to the dorm here, speeds are at 4-5,000KB/s but i've always wonder if the connection was through air or by land.

 

[SavageBasher]

I think you mean Sea. Sorry, couldn't resist...

 

[diggingforgold]

How do you lay such large wire underwater through such a big distance without the risk of having any seismic activity destroy the cable? I've always wondered how they did this myself. There must be multiple lines if they do run it under water. I think satillite would be a more reasonable method, but then again it seems like there would be quite a load.

 

[gustav]

How do you lay such large wire underwater through such a big distance without the risk of having any seismic activity destroy the cable? I've always wondered how they did this myself. There must be multiple lines if they do run it under water. I think satillite would be a more reasonable method, but then again it seems like there would be quite a load.

I don't think its just the fiber optic cable going under the sea. Its probably in some sort of re-enforced enclosure that keeps it air/water tight. I would like to see some people that actually know about this reply, I was 99% sure there was an under-water "cable", but I wasn't sure what kind or how they did it and that sort of thing.

 

[Drec]

this would make one hell of an intresting show on the disc/tlc channel...*calls disc to sell the idea* hehe

 

[SavageBasher]

"The Future Of The Internet"

 

[Busty St. Clair]

man that would be expensive for that much fiber optic cable to go under the sea.

 

[JDXNC]

It is a bundle of Fiber optic cables to be exact, 3 of them if I remember correctly. I saw it on the discovery channel. Takes them 4 months to load the cable onto a ship.... its ONE peice long enough to cover the distance, all wound up into the hull. Its burried under a few feet of sand near land but out to see its just laid ontop of the sea floor. They plan the route to be on the best terrain, its not a straight line. I think they left a little slack now and then incase things moved down there. Its hard to go into much detail on an hour long show, I'm sure they'll probably show it again sometime.

 

[HaTE]

only the government and the companys who lay the lines know where thier at and how many there are, they keep the info private for that people cant go out and cut/damage the lines.

 

[Mike2002]

There is a website that shows pretty much exactly how the fiber optic cable is laid across the ocean. I believe it is buried for the first part and once it gets to the flat part of the ocean it is just layed on the ground. I will search around the net and try to find the website that describes how it is done and everything.