Grace Hopper cable in the UK: How can Google transfer Internet through the Ocean?
There is much effort and investment required to achieve the title of “Tech Giant”. In the case of Google and Facebook, that is also an added need to lay down thousands of Kms of undersea cables between continents.
Often, the two companies invest in cable projects in collaboration with other companies, although Google has five privately owned cable projects underway. In total, Google is invested in 19 cable projects around the world. While Facebook is invested in two cables that are currently active, and others under construction.
The Undersea Cabling Process
The companies kick off the project with mapping the route they want for the cable.
The process begins with companies planning the exact route of the cable. Jane Stowell, Google’s global infrastructure strategic negotiator, told Insider that such planning could take up to a year.
Likewise, a Facebook spokesperson said the company runs a geophysical and bathymetric survey along its projected path, which allows for an accurate mapping. To do this, companies send ships equipped with sonar to map the seabed and look for potential risks such as high currents, underwater landslides, and active bombs or mines.
Cables are wrapped in a copper casing for electricity conduction. As well as a plastic and steel sheathing to waterproof the cable and help it withstand potentially adverse ocean conditions, Stowell said.
“For Facebook’s 2Africa cable, it’s using aluminum rather than copper, which it said will lower manufacturing costs and enable longer cables”, according to Insider. “2Africa is in the process of being laid around the entire continent and is 37,000 kilometers long — only slightly shorter than the circumference of the Earth”.
Congratulations Google landing the Grace Hopper cable in Cornwall and committing to replacing aging systems with state of the art technologies. I look forward to it increasing the capacity for Google services that so many of us use daily. pic.twitter.com/heGoXtEeEN
— Matt Warman MP (@mattwarman) September 15, 2021
Second, workers must carry the cables on board a specialized ship. Stowell explained that Google uses a fleet of about 50 ships with a capacity of up to 100 crew members. The mere action of loading the cable onto the ship could take up to four weeks.
The ships then lower a plough under the water to dig a trench for the cable along the seabed. And at a depth that keeps it somewhat safe, so that it does not need to be buried or armed, according to what “Insider” reported, but longer cables need amplifiers every 100 meters to boost signal and maintain data movement.
Finally, buoys are used to float the cable near the shore, where the cable is pulled into a prepared trench, and connected to a buried container containing a ground cable – which in turn connects to a cable station.
Today, our Grace Hopper cable has landed in Bude, Cornwall.
Connecting the US, the UK and Spain, this new subsea cable will help achieve the rapidly growing demand for high-bandwidth connectivity and services.
Find out more here → https://t.co/GJsqGO4aIu pic.twitter.com/WQJ5IaI49J
— Google Cloud UK & Ireland (@GoogleCloud_UKI) September 14, 2021
These cables can rout a huge amount of data every second. For example, Stowell claimed that Google’s “Grace Hopper”, which was landed in the #UK earlier this week – is set to transfer 340 terabytes of data per second, which would mean 17.5 million people in the UK can now watch 4K videos at the same time.
Source: Business Insider
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