The underwater world of the Internet or where they drown optics in the world's oceans

The Internet is not just a web. In addition to the content (and its storage and processing devices) displayed on web pages, communication lines are also important. And the most important long-haul directions, because There can be several providers in a city, but few can provide a connection between cities and countries. Especially, if we are talking about different continents, then you have to drown hundreds of kilometers of fiber in the depths of the world's oceans.


The fastest data transmission medium today is fiber.
Optical fiber is laid between continents and countries. And inside the country too.
The site http://www.telegeography.com/ has a wonderful map of submarine cables according to the data at the beginning of the current year.


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What is interesting is how traffic is distributed. States in terms of traffic transmitted over communication lines are still leading.


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It can be seen that the main traffic from Russia goes through Europe, and then via trans-Atlantic cables to the USA, where the main content servers are located.
I wonder how the cable network inside Russia is arranged ...
We will not go into the intricacies and interweaving of intracity networks, because There are many providers and the issues of the last mile are now solved quite easily in large cities.
More interesting is the way how long-distance communication is carried out in Russia. Satellite systems will not be considered due to their relatively small bandwidth compared to fiber-optic communication lines.
In Russia, we can mention two long-haul telecommunications operators that build and maintain their own communication lines - this is Transtelecom and Rostelecom.


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Transtelecom is a subsidiary of the Russian railways and basically their communication lines go along the railway, which is quite logical in terms of servicing these lines. And for the last years 100 people in Russia live mainly along the railway. That's just about the line of communication between Sakhalin Island and the mainland, they lied a little (there is a cable, only there is no connection), but this is a topic for a separate article.

In confirmation of the fact that people in Russia live mainly in the western part and along the railway, the following picture from space can be given.


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Another interesting map gives us a picture of Rostelecom's long-haul communication lines.


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Because most content servers are located in the United States (or states) of America. Therefore, it is up to these servers (and to the USA) that there should be sufficiently wide communication channels, preferably bypassing intermediaries from other countries and preferably duplicated ones, since communication lines tend to fail. I could be mistaken, but it seems that today, direct connections with the United States exist for Russia only via satellite communication channels, or via copper cables, which were already installed at the dawn of the first telephones and telegraphs.

Although, if not to take into account the cost, the most preferable option would be to duplicate the connection between Russia and the United States via submarine fiber cables in two directions - the first across the Atlantic, the second across the Pacific Ocean. For example, from St. Petersburg via the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to New York; from Vladivostok through the Sea of ​​Japan and the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, or through Kamchatka through the Bering Strait to Alaska. But this is so, dreams, dreams ...

Although the first steps in this direction have already been made. So, the already mentioned company Transtelecom planned to connect Sakhalin Island with the mainland near Sovgavani with an underwater fiber-optic cable, and then connect Sakhalin with Hokkaido, and from Japan to the states a wide enough channel. Sakhalin is connected to Hokkaido, but not quite from the mainland ... Also, Dalsvyaz (now re-bordering together with Rostelecom) had a project of connecting Sakhalin with the mainland optics, but it ended in failure, the description of which draws on a separate article. In addition, Dalsvyaz had a project to connect Kamchatka to the mainland with an underwater fiber optic cable, but the project was frozen at the end of 2008 for obvious reasons ... Currently, Rostelecom has connected Nakhodka and the Japanese city of Naoutsu with an underwater cable (it can be seen on the map of underwater cables for 2010 ), let's see what will happen in this direction further. Continuation of how to heat the optics in the Russian territorial waters ...