How the World Wide Web was created - the Internet (9 photos). The first transatlantic cables - when they appeared and how they worked

Regarding the laying by Google of its own fiber-optic communication cable along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which will connect the company's data centers in Oregon, USA, with Japan. It would seem that this is a huge project worth $ 300 million and 10,000 km long. However, if you dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that this project is outstanding only because it will be done by one media giant for personal use. The whole planet is already tightly entangled with communication cables and there are much more of them under water than it seems at first glance. Having become interested in this topic, I prepared a general educational material for the curious.

Origins of intercontinental communication

Cable device

• Durability
• Be waterproof (suddenly!)
• Withstand the enormous pressure of water masses above oneself
• Have sufficient strength for installation and operation
• Cable materials must be selected so that mechanical changes (stretching of the cable during operation / laying, for example) do not change its performance

The working part of the cable we are considering, by and large, does not differ in anything special from ordinary optics. The whole essence of deep-sea cables lies in the protection of this very working part and the maximum increase in its service life, as can be seen from the schematic drawing on the right. Let's take a look at the purpose of all structural elements in order.

Polyethylene- the outer traditional insulating layer of the cable. This material is an excellent choice for direct contact with water, as it has the following properties:
Resistant to water, does not react with alkalis of any concentration, with solutions of neutral, acidic and basic salts, organic and inorganic acids, even with concentrated sulfuric acid.

The world ocean contains, in fact, all the elements of the periodic table, and water is a universal solvent. The use of such a common in chem. the industry of a material like polyethylene is logical and justified, since, first of all, the engineers needed to exclude the reaction of the cable and water, thereby avoiding its destruction under the influence environment. Polyethylene was used as an insulating material during the laying of the first intercontinental lines telephone communication in the middle of the 20th century.
However, due to its porous structure, polyethylene cannot provide complete waterproofing of the cable, so we move on to the next layer.

Mylar film- synthetic material based on polyethylene terephthalate. Has the following properties:
Has no smell, taste. Transparent, chemically inactive, with high barrier properties (including many aggressive environments), tear resistant (10 times stronger than polyethylene), wear and impact. Mylar (or Lavsan in the USSR) is widely used in industry, packaging, textiles, and the space industry. They even make tents out of it. However, the use of this material is limited to multilayer films due to heat seal shrinkage.

After a layer of mylar film, you can find cable reinforcement different power, depending on the declared characteristics of the product and its intended purpose. Basically, a powerful steel braid is used to give the cable sufficient rigidity and strength, as well as to counteract aggressive mechanical influences from the outside. According to some data circulating on the net, EMP from cables can attract sharks that gnaw through the cables. Same on great depths ah, the cable is simply laid on the bottom, without digging a trench, and fishing vessels can hook it with their gear. To protect against such influences, the cable is reinforced with a steel braid. The steel wire used in the reinforcement is pre-galvanized. The cable reinforcement can take place in several layers. The main task of the manufacturer during this operation is the uniformity of force during the winding of steel wire. With double reinforcement, winding occurs in different directions. If the balance is not observed during this operation, the cable may spontaneously twist into a spiral, forming loops.

As a result of these measures, the mass of a running kilometer can reach several tons. "Why not light and strong aluminum?" many will ask. The whole problem is that in air aluminum has a stable oxide film, but in contact with sea ​​water this metal can enter into an intense chemical reaction with the displacement of hydrogen ions, which have a detrimental effect on that part of the cable for which everything was started - optical fiber. That's why steel is used.

aluminum water barrier, or a layer of aluminum polyethylene is used as another layer of waterproofing and cable shielding. Aluminum-polyethylene is a combination of aluminum foil and polyethylene film, interconnected by an adhesive layer. Gluing can be either one-sided or two-sided. On the scale of the entire structure, aluminum-polyethylene looks almost invisible. The thickness of the film may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but, for example, one of the manufacturers in the Russian Federation has a final product thickness of 0.15-0.2 mm with one-sided sizing.

Polycarbonate layer reused to reinforce the structure. Lightweight, durable and resistant to pressure and shock, the material is widely used in everyday products such as bicycle and motorcycle helmets, also used as a material in the manufacture of lenses, CDs and lighting products, the sheet version is used in construction as a light-transmitting material. Has a high coefficient of thermal expansion. It was also used in the production of cables.

Copper or aluminum tube is part of the core of the cable and serves to shield it. Other copper tubes with fiber optics inside are placed directly into this design. Depending on the design of the cable, there may be several tubes and they can be intertwined in various ways. Below are four examples of cable core organization:

Laying the optical fiber in copper tubes filled with a hydrophobic thixotropic gel, and metal structural elements are used to organize remote power supply of intermediate regenerators - devices that restore the shape of an optical pulse, which, propagating through the fiber, undergoes distortion.

The cut looks something like this:

Cable production

Cabling

Actually, from the GIF, the laying process becomes extremely clear.

The laying of fiber optic cable on the sea / ocean floor runs continuously from point A to point B. The cable is laid in bays on ships and transported to the place of descent to the bottom. These bays look, for example, like this:

If it seems to you that it is small, then pay attention to this photo:

After the ship goes to sea, it remains exclusively technical side process. A team of stackers with the help of special machines unwinds the cable at a certain speed and, maintaining the necessary cable tension due to the movement of the ship, moves along a pre-laid route.

From the outside it looks like this:

In case of any problems, breaks, or damages, special anchors are provided on the cable, which allow you to raise it to the surface and repair the problem section of the line.

And, in the end, thanks to all this, we can comfortably and at high speed watch photos and videos with cats from all over the world on the Internet.

In the comments to an article about the Google project, the user

Youth Technique No. 1 1937

In the first half 19th century the electric telegraph appeared. Its appearance was caused by the development of the machine industry and the gigantic expansion of the world market. Capitalism needed reliable and fast communication. The telegraph quickly won universal recognition and became an indispensable means of business relations and international speculation.

Naturally, the question soon arose of the need to establish a telegraph connection between the Old and New Worlds - between Europe and America. Wheatstone's automatic machines and Yuz's direct-printers were already working on the telegraph lines, and communication from America to Europe was still carried out by steamboats in 20 days. With such increased international relations, such slowness was completely unbearable.

The question of how to establish electrical communication across the vast expanses of the Atlantic Ocean separating Europe and America has been worrying the minds of scientists, technicians and inventors since the early forties. Back in those days, the American inventor of the writing telegraph

Samuel Morse expressed his confidence that it was possible to lay a telegraph wire along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It took, however, more than twenty years of hard work and titanic efforts associated with overcoming extraordinary difficulties before people were able to connect both continents by telegraph.

The first idea about underwater telegraphy came from the English physicist Wheatstone, who in 1840 proposed his project of connecting England and France by telegraph communication. His idea was, however, rejected as unworkable. In addition, at that time they still did not know how to insulate wires so reliably that they could conduct electric current while at the bottom of the seas and oceans.

The situation changed after the substance, gutta-percha, newly discovered in India, was brought to Europe, and the German inventor Werner Siemens proposed covering wires with it for insulation. Gutta-percha is the most suitable for insulating underwater wires, because, oxidizing and shrinking in the air, it does not change at all in water and can remain there for an indefinitely long time. Thus, the most important issue of the insulation of underwater wires was solved.

In 1847, the English engineer John Brett received from the French government a concession to build an underwater telegraph line between France and England, but he failed to complete the work on time and lost the concession. It was renewed in 1849, and this time Brett undertook to open a message by September 1, 1850. The need for fast electrical communication between both countries was so great and the establishment of this connection promised such large profits that Brett was able to establish a joint-stock company without much difficulty and raise the necessary capital for his enterprise.The cable, made in England, consisted of two copper wires, each 2 mm wide.The wires were covered for insulation with a thick gutta-percha sheath.

On August 23, 1850, a special ship Goliath with a tugboat went to sea to lay the cable.

Their path lay from Dover to the shores of France. The warship Vigdeon was ahead, pointing the Goliath and the tugboat to a predetermined path, marked by buoys with flags fluttering on them.

Everything went well. A cylinder mounted on board the ship, on which the cable was wound, was evenly unwound, and the wire was immersed in water. Every 15 minutes, a load of 10 kilograms of 4 lead was hung from the wire so that it would sink to the very bottom. On the fourth day, the Goliath reached the French coast, the cable was brought to land and connected to a telegraph machine. A 100-word welcome telegram was sent to Dover via a submarine cable. The huge crowd that had gathered in Dover at the offices of the telegraph company, and eagerly awaited news from France, greeted the birth of underwater telegraphy with great enthusiasm.

Alas, these delights were premature! The first telegram, transmitted by submarine cable from the French coast to Dover, was also the last. The cable suddenly stopped working. Only after some time did they find out the reason for such a sudden damage. It turned out that some French fisherman, throwing a net, accidentally hooked the cable and tore a piece out of it. But, as they say, there is no evil without good. This accident, oddly enough, contributed to the further improvement and improvement of the technique of laying submarine cables. Electrical engineers who examined a piece of cable found by a fisherman, which had already been on the ocean floor, found that the gutta-percha insulation was too thin, that the cable was not protected from mechanical damage, and that, in general, significant changes should be made to its structure.

But still, despite the first failure, even the most ardent skeptics believed in underwater telegraphy. John Brett organized a second joint-stock company in 1851 to continue the business. This time, the experience of the first laying was already taken into account, and the new cable was arranged according to a completely different pattern. It consisted of four copper wires, each of which was surrounded by a gutta-percha sheath six millimeters thick. All copper wires, together with five round hemp cords tarred and saturated with lard, were twisted into one cable, already wrapped around a common hemp tarred cord. Another hemp layer was applied on top, and all this was wrapped around ten galvanized iron wires with a diameter of seven millimeters for strength and protection against mechanical damage. How much this cable differed from the first one can be seen at least from the fact that it weighed 166 tons, while the weight of the first cable did not exceed the first, it can be seen at least from the fact that it weighed 166 tons, while the weight of the first cable did not exceeded 14 tons.

This time the venture was a complete success. The special ship that laid the cable made its way from Dover to Calais without much difficulty, where the end of the cable was connected to a telegraph machine installed in a tent right on the coastal cliff.

A year later, on November 1, 1852, a direct telegraph service was established between London and Paris. Soon England was connected by submarine cable to Ireland, Germany, Holland and Belgium. Then; the telegraph connected Sweden with Norway, Italy with Sardinia and Corsica. In 1854-1855. a submarine cable was laid across the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Through this cable, the command of the allied forces besieging Sevastopol communicated with their governments.

After the success of these first submarine lines, the question of laying a cable across Atlantic Ocean for the connection of America with Europe by telegraph communication was already put in practice. The energetic American businessman Cyros Field, who formed the Transatlantic Company in 1856, took up this grandiose undertaking. Before embarking on a grand undertaking, Field contacted the most prominent experts in telegraphy, who had to resolve a number of important and still obscure technical issues. Unexplained was, in particular, the question of whether the electric current can run a huge distance of 4-5 thousand kilometers separating Europe from America. Veteran telegraph business Samuel Morse answered this question in the affirmative. For greater certainty, Field turned to the British government with a request to connect all the wires at his disposal into one line and pass current through them. The British government, vitally interested in the success of Field's enterprise, granted his request, and on the night of December 9, 1856, all the air, underground and underwater wires of England and Ireland were connected into one continuous circuit 8 thousand kilometers long. That "easily" passed through the huge chain, and there was no more doubt on this side.

At the same time, Field found out the nature and direction of the future "route" of the transatlantic cable. In this regard, Lieutenant Maury rendered him a great service, supervising, on the instructions of the American government, the study of the deep currents of the Atlantic Ocean and temperature regime its lower layers. Morey reported that in the middle of the ocean there was a vast underwater highland stretching between Ireland and Newfoundland. Of course, on this hill, it is most convenient to lay the cable. Maury also pointed out that, according to his numerous observations, the most favorable time of the year, when the oceanic plains are calm, is the beginning of August.

Having collected all the necessary preliminary information, Field began in February 1857 to manufacture the cable. The cable “consisted of a seven-wire copper rope with a gutta-percha sheath. Its cores were lined with tarred hemp, and on the outside the cable was still wrapped with 18 cords of 7 iron wires each. In this form, a cable 4 thousand kilometers long weighed three thousand tons. This means that for its transportation by rail, a train of 183 freight wagons would be needed.

On August 6, 1857, a flotilla of ships loaded with cable moved from Valencia (in Ireland) towards Newfoundland. At first everything went well. Ships. slowly moved forward, laying the cable at a speed of three and a half kilometers per hour, but soon (some ten kilometers from the coast, due to the sailor’s oversight, the cable broke. Since it was still not deep, by the end of the next day it was possible to remove the broken end from the water , connect it with the rest of the cable and move on.

On August 11, during a strong storm, the second break of the “cable” occurred, when about 540 kilometers had already been laid. This time, due to the great depths, it was not possible to extract the broken end from the bottom of the ocean. The remaining cable was no longer enough to lay between the two continents. The ships returned to England, and the case had to be started anew.

They went through all the old cable, cut everything out of it bad places and prepared a new piece of cable 1,350 kilometers long.

But the true cause of the malfunction was found out many years later and it consisted in insufficiently careful soldering (the entire cable consisted of about two thousand separate pieces and had the same number of solderings).

Around the same time, the second submarine cable from Suez to Indigo, more than 5 thousand kilometers long, ceased to operate.

All this forced the British government to temporarily stop issuing further concessions for the installation of an underwater telegraph between America and Europe. A special commission was appointed to develop standards for the manufacture and laying of cables. The commission completed its work in April 1861, and its conclusions served as the basis for all further underwater telegraphy.

Meanwhile, the same tireless Cyroe Field organized a company to once again try to lay a cable across the unyielding ocean. The new "cable" manufactured by the company consisted of a seven-wire cord insulated with four layers. Between the wire and the inner gutta-percha sheath, as well as between the other layers of gutta-percha, a layer of a special composition was laid, closely binding the wire and sheath together and eliminating the appearance of air bubbles. The wire itself was made of better copper than before, and was twice as thick as before.Outside, the cable was covered with a layer of "tarred hemp and wrapped with ten steel wires. A special ship"Great Eastern"was adapted for laying the cable - in the past, a well-equipped ocean-going steamer, not paying back the costs of passenger traffic and removed from flights.

On July 3, 1865, the Great Eastern, accompanied by two English warships, went to sea, having previously connected the end of the cable to a special telegraph station built on the coastal cliffs of Valencia. This station was connected to the entire Irish and European network, and thus, during its entire voyage, the Great Eastern could send telegraphic messages to Europe about the progress of work. On board the ship were first-class scientific and technical forces who carefully monitored the laying of the cable. By the way, the famous English physicist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), who subsequently designed a special receiving apparatus for the transatlantic telegraph, was on the Great Eastern as an electrical engineer.

The very next day after sailing from the Great Eastern, electrical engineers discovered that the current had stopped flowing through the cable. The steamer, having performed an extremely complex and dangerous maneuver, during which the cable almost broke, made a full turn and began to rewind the cable already lowered to the bottom. Soon, when the cable began to rise from the water, everyone noticed the cause of the damage: a sharp iron rod was pierced through the cable, touching the gutta-percha insulation.

The same story repeated itself five days later, when 1300 kilometers had already been covered. Only later it turned out that there was no evil will here, and the damage to the cable occurred solely due to technical oversight - the outer steel wire bent in some places, and during rapid rotation metal cylinder these bent ends were pressed into the cable.

For the same reason, the cable failed for the third time. It happened on August 2, when the Great Eastern had already passed about two-thirds of its way. When they began to lift the cable back from a depth of 4 thousand meters, it broke off from a strong tension and drowned. The captain of the Great Eastern Anderson, who had extensive experience in laying cables from the Mediterranean Sea, decided this time not to yield the cable to the ocean, but to extract it from a 4-kilometer depth to the surface of the water and, having soldered it to the end remaining on the ship, continue laying.

The longest ropes were lowered into the water, to which anchors with open paws were tied. The steamer was sent across the cable laying line in the hope that the anchors dragged along the ocean floor would hook the cable and lift it to the surface. Several times the anchors really caught the cable, lifted it up, but each time the cable could not withstand the enormous weight - and the cable, together with the anchors holding it, plunged back into the ocean. Finally, when the reserves of ropes and anchors were exhausted, and there was just enough fresh water and coal left to get to England. The Great Eastern headed for Valencia.

After telegraph communication with the Great Eastery was interrupted on August 2 due to damage to the cable, there was no news of the expedition in England. The country was seized with anxiety for the fate of the brave crew. This completely natural human feeling was accompanied, as is the custom in capitalist countries, with disgusting stock trading and speculation. The shares of the transatlantic telegraph society were rapidly falling in price, they were gradually bought up on the cheap by clever businessmen who understood that, thanks to the technical experience accumulated over many years of failure, the cable would soon be laid.

Even before the return of the Great Eastern to England, the company decided to make a new cable and with the same energy to continue efforts to organize a telegraphic communication between the Old and New Worlds. And the return of the Great Eastern further strengthened the position of supporters of the continuation of work.

The company produced a new cable, much improved over the previous one. The Great Eastern was equipped with new cable-laying machines, as well as special devices designed to lift the cable from the bottom. New expedition set out on July 7, 1866. This time, the daring undertaking was crowned with complete success: the Prate Eastern reached the American coast, finally laying a telegraph cable across the ocean. This “cable operated almost without interruption for seven years.

The human will and technology defeated the elements. On August 9, the Prate Eastern steamer, accompanied by two other ships, the Albany and the Medway, set off into the ocean to the place where the end of the previous cable had been thrown. Despite the availability of sufficient materials and special machines for lifting the cable, this undertaking proved to be very difficult and complex. Several times it was possible to hook the cable with anchors and lift it up, but the cable invariably broke and fell into the water again.

Only on September 2, after much effort, all three ships simultaneously picked up the cable and carefully began to lift it. This time, the enormous weight of the cable was distributed among three steamers, and it was successfully brought to the surface. Immediately in Europe, where for more than three weeks they had no news of the Great Eastern, the joyful news of the favorable progress of work was transmitted. So, the cable, which rested for about a year at the bottom of the ocean, worked perfectly. He was soldered to the cable that was available on the Great Eastern, and the ship again headed for Newfoundland, which she safely reached on September 8th. Thus, in just a month and a half, two telegraph lines were laid across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and America.

The third transatlantic cable was laid by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company in 1873. It connected the Petit Minon near Brest in France with Newfoundland. Over the next 11 years, the same company laid four more cables between Valencia and Newfoundland. In 1874, a telegraph line was built connecting Europe with South America. .Minin this begins in Lisbon, then goes through the sharp Ml Deru and the Cape Verde Islands and ends in Pernambuco in Brazil. Another cable in the same direction was completed in 1884.

After the world imperialist war, 20 submarine cables operated between America and Europe. Despite such a large number of wires and the radio communication established between both continents, telegraph traffic increased so much that it was necessary to lay two more improved cables. They were wrapped with a thin tape of permalloy, a special alloy of iron and nickel, which allows several times to increase the speed of signal transmission over the cable.

In 1809, that is, three years after the laying of a submarine cable across the Atlantic Ocean, the construction of another grandiose telegraph enterprise, the Indo-European line, was completed. This line connected Calcutta with London by double wire. Its length is 10 thousand kilometers.

Much later than across the Atlantic, a telegraph cable was laid across the entire Great Ocean. Back in the 19th century, India was connected to Australia by a submarine cable, but it was not until October 31, 1902 that the connection between Canada and Australia was completed by a "cable about 1,000 kilometers long. Prior to this, a telegram from Canada to Australia had to go across the Atlantic Ocean to England, and from here - go further east across the Red Sea east coast Africa, undergoing dozens of retakes in various countries.

So the telegraph network truly entangled the entire globe. In 1898, the length of all telegraph lines reached 318 thousand kilometers. And in 1934 this figure increased. There were 643,000 kilometers of telegraph lines this year in all countries.

Materials: Youth Technique No. 1 1937

What you see above is a submarine communications cable.

It is 69 millimeters in diameter, and it is he who carries 99% of all international communication traffic (i.e. Internet, telephony and other data). It connects all the continents of our planet, with the exception of Antarctica. These amazing fiber-optic cables cross all the oceans, and they are hundreds of thousands, what to say, millions of kilometers long.

This "CS Cable Innovator" is specially designed for laying fiber optic cable and is the largest ship of its kind in the world. It was built in 1995 in Finland, it is 145 meters long and 24 meters wide. It is capable of carrying up to 8500 tons of fiber optic cable. The ship has 80 cabins, of which 42 are officers' cabins, 36 are crew cabins and two are luxury cabins.
Without maintenance and refueling, it can work 42 days, and if it is accompanied by a support ship, then all 60.

Initially, submarine cables were simple point-to-point connections. Now submarine cables have become more complex and they can split and branch right at the bottom of the ocean.

Since 2012, the provider has successfully demonstrated an underwater data transmission channel with a bandwidth of 100 Gbps. It stretches across the entire Atlantic Ocean and its length is 6000 kilometers. Imagine that three years ago the throughput of the Atlantic communication channel was 2.5 times less and was equal to 40 Gbit / s. Now ships like the CS Cable Innovator are constantly working to provide us with fast intercontinental Internet.

Cross section of submarine communication cable

1. Polyethylene
2. Mylar coating
3. Stranded steel wires
4. Aluminum water protection
5. Polycarbonate
6. Copper or aluminum tube
7. Vaseline
8. Optical fibers

On the bottom of the sea, fiber optic cable is laid at a time from one coast to another. In some cases, several ships are required to organize FOCL along the bottom of the sea / ocean, since the required amount of cable may not fit on one ship.

Underwater fiber optic communication lines are divided into repeater (using underwater optical amplifiers) and repeaterless. The first of them are subdivided into coastal communication lines and main transoceanic (intercontinental) ones. Repeaterless communication lines are divided into coastal communication lines and communication lines between individual points (between the mainland and the islands, the mainland and drilling stations, between the islands). There are also communication lines using remote optical pumping.

FOCL cables for laying along the bottom, as a rule, consist of an optical core, a current-carrying core and external protective covers. Cables for repeaterless fiber optic lines have the same structure, but they do not have a current-carrying core.

Special problems of laying FOCL through water obstacles (under) water are associated with the repair of sea communication lines. After all, lying for a long time on seabed, the cable becomes almost invisible. In addition, currents can carry a fiber optic cable away from its original location (even for many kilometers), and the bottom topography is complex and varied. Cable damage can be caused by ship anchors and marine life. It may also be adversely affected by dredging, pipe installation and drilling, as well as underwater earthquakes and landslides.

This is what it looks like on the bottom. What are the environmental consequences of laying telecommunications cables on the seabed? How does this affect the ocean floor and the animals that live there? Although literally millions of kilometers of communication cables have been placed on the sea floor over the past century, this has not affected the lives of underwater inhabitants in any way. According to a recent study, the cable has only minor impacts on animals living and living within the seabed. In the photo above we see a variety marine life next to the submarine cable that crosses the Half Moon Bay continental shelf.
Here the cable is only 3.2 cm thick.

Many feared that cable television would load the channels, but in fact it increased the load by only 1 percent. Moreover, cable television, which can go through submarine fibers, already now has a bandwidth of 1 Terabit, while satellites provide 100 times less. And if you want to buy such an interatlantic cable, it will cost you 200-500 million dollars.

And now I will tell you about the first cable across the ocean. Here listen...

The question of how to establish electrical communication across the vast expanses of the Atlantic Ocean separating Europe and America has been worrying the minds of scientists, technicians and inventors since the early forties. Back in those days, the American inventor of the writing telegraph, Samuel Morse, expressed confidence that it was possible to lay a telegraph "wire along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."

The first idea about underwater telegraphy came from the English physicist Wheatstone, who in 1840 proposed his project of connecting England and France by telegraph communication. His idea was, however, rejected as unworkable. In addition, at that time they still did not know how to insulate wires so reliably that they could conduct electric current while at the bottom of the seas and oceans.

The situation changed after a substance, newly discovered in India, gutta-percha, was brought to Europe, and the German inventor Werner Siemens proposed covering wires with it for insulation. Gutta-percha is the most suitable for insulating underwater wires, because, oxidizing and shrinking in the air, it does not change at all in water and can remain there for an indefinitely long time. Thus, the most important issue of the insulation of underwater wires was solved.

On August 23, 1850, a special ship Goliath with a tugboat went to sea to lay the cable.

Their path lay from Dover to the shores of France. The warship Vigdeon was ahead, pointing the Goliath and the tugboat to a predetermined path, marked by buoys with flags fluttering on them.

Everything went well. A cylinder mounted on board the ship, on which the cable was wound, was evenly unwound, and the wire was immersed in water. Every 15 minutes, a load of 10 kilograms of 4 lead was hung from the wire so that it would sink to the very bottom. On the fourth day, the Goliath reached the French coast, the cable was brought to land and connected to a telegraph machine. A 100-word welcome telegram was sent to Dover via a submarine cable. The huge crowd that had gathered in Dover at the offices of the telegraph company, and eagerly awaited news from France, greeted the birth of underwater telegraphy with great enthusiasm.

Alas, these delights were premature! The first telegram, transmitted by submarine cable from the French coast to Dover, was also the last. The cable suddenly stopped working. Only after some time did they find out the reason for such a sudden damage. It turned out that some French fisherman, throwing a net, accidentally hooked the cable and tore a piece out of it.

But still, despite the first failure, even the most ardent skeptics believed in underwater telegraphy. John Brett organized a second joint-stock company in 1851 to continue the business. This time, the experience of the first laying was already taken into account, and the new cable was arranged according to a completely different pattern. This cable was different from the first: it weighed 166 tons, while the weight of the first cable did not exceed 14 tons.

This time the venture was a complete success. The special ship that laid the cable made its way from Dover to Calais without much difficulty, where the end of the cable was connected to a telegraph machine installed in a tent right on the coastal cliff.

A year later, on November 1, 1852, a direct telegraph service was established between London and Paris. England was soon connected by submarine cable to Ireland, Germany, Holland and Belgium. Then the telegraph connected Sweden with Norway, Italy - with Sardinia and Corsica. In 1854-1855. a submarine cable was laid across the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Through this cable, the command of the allied forces besieging Sevastopol communicated with their governments.

After the success of these first submarine lines, the question of laying a cable across the Atlantic Ocean to connect America with Europe by telegraph communication was already practically raised. The energetic American businessman Cyros Field, who formed the Transatlantic Company in 1856, took up this grandiose undertaking.

Unexplained was, in particular, the question of whether the electric current can run a huge distance of 4-5 thousand kilometers separating Europe from America. Veteran telegraph business Samuel Morse answered this question in the affirmative. For greater certainty, Field turned to the British government with a request to connect all the wires at his disposal into one line and pass current through them. On the night of December 9, 1856, all the air, underground and underwater wires of England and Ireland were connected into one continuous chain 8 thousand kilometers long. The current easily passed through the huge circuit, and there was no more doubt on this side.

Having collected all the necessary preliminary information, Field began in February 1857 to manufacture the cable. The cable consisted of a seven-wire copper rope with a gutta-percha sheath. Its cores were lined with tarred hemp, and on the outside the cable was still wrapped with 18 cords of 7 iron wires each. In this form, a cable 4 thousand kilometers long weighed three thousand tons. This means that for its transportation by rail, a train of 183 freight wagons would be needed.

The history of cable laying is replete with a mass of unforeseen circumstances. It broke off several times, the soldered pieces "did not want" to deliver energy to its destination.

The indefatigable Sairoe Field organized a company to once again try to lay a cable across the unyielding ocean. The new cable manufactured by the company consisted of a seven-wire cord insulated with four layers. Outside, the cable was covered with a layer of “tarred hemp and wrapped with ten steel wires. For laying the cable, a special ship, the Great Eastern, was adapted - in the past, a well-equipped ocean-going steamer that did not pay off the costs of passenger traffic and was withdrawn from flights.

The very next day after sailing from the Great Eastern, electrical engineers discovered that the current had stopped flowing through the cable. The steamer, having performed an extremely difficult and dangerous maneuver, during which the cable almost broke, made a full turn and began to rewind the cable already lowered to the bottom. Soon, when the cable began to rise from the water, everyone noticed the cause of the damage: a sharp iron rod was pierced through the cable, touching the gutta-percha insulation. The cable broke twice more. When they began to lift the cable back from a depth of 4 thousand meters, it broke off from a strong tension and drowned.

The company produced a new cable, much improved over the previous one. The Great Eastern was equipped with new cable-laying machines, as well as special devices designed to lift the cable from the bottom. The new expedition set off on July 7, 1866. This time, the daring undertaking was crowned with complete success: the Prate Eastern reached the American coast, finally laying a telegraph cable across the ocean. This “cable operated almost without interruption for seven years.

The third transatlantic cable was laid by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company in 1873. It connected the Petit Minon near Brest in France with Newfoundland. Over the next 11 years, the same company laid four more cables between Valencia and Newfoundland. In 1874, a telegraph line was built connecting Europe with South America.

In 1809, that is, three years after the laying of a submarine cable across the Atlantic Ocean, the construction of another grandiose telegraph enterprise, the Indo-European line, was completed. This line connected Calcutta with London by double wire. Its length is 10 thousand kilometers.

Much later than across the Atlantic, a telegraph cable was laid across the entire Great Ocean. So the telegraph network entangled the entire globe. Thanks to these lines, the world wide web - the Internet - operates almost instantly.

And while I remind you The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Describing the system of cables that keep the Internet running, Neal Stephenson once compared the Earth to a computer motherboard.

Every day you see telephone poles on the streets connecting hundreds of kilometers of wires and signs warning of buried fiber optic lines, but in fact, this is only a small part of the physical appearance of the global network. The main communications are laid in the coldest depths of the ocean, and in today's article we will list 10 curious facts about these submarine cables.

1. Cable installation is a slow, tedious and costly process.

99% of international data is transmitted over wires that lie on the ocean floor, called submarine communications cables. In total, their length exceeds hundreds of thousands of miles, and such wires are laid even at a depth of 9 km.

Cables are installed by special laying ships. They need not only to drop the wire with the weight attached to the bottom, but also to ensure that it passes only on a flat surface, bypassing Coral reefs, wrecks and other common obstacles.

The diameter of the shallow water cable is about 6 cm, but the deep water cables are much thinner - about the thickness of a marker. The difference in parameters is due to the usual vulnerability factor - at a depth of more than 2 km, almost nothing happens, so the cable does not need to be covered with a galvanized protective layer. Wires located at shallow depths are buried at the bottom using directed high-pressure water jets. Although the cost of laying one mile of submarine cable varies depending on its overall length and purpose, the process always costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

2. Sharks are trying to eat the Internet

No one knows why sharks like to gnaw on submarine cables so much. Perhaps it has something to do with electromagnetic fields. Or they are just curious. Or maybe this is how they are trying to destroy our communications infrastructure before a land attack. In fact, sharks literally chew on our Internet and sometimes damage wire insulation. In response, companies like Google are covering their communications with a layer of protective Kevlar.

3. The internet is just as vulnerable underwater as it is underground.

Every year, bulldozers destroy underground communication cables, and although there is no such construction equipment in the ocean, many other dangers threaten underwater wires. In addition to sharks, internet cables can be damaged by ship anchors, fishing nets, and various natural disasters.

One Toronto-based company has proposed laying such wires across the Arctic, which connects Tokyo and London. Previously thought impossible, but the climate has changed, and thanks to the melting ice sheet, this project has become a feasible, but still incredibly expensive, task.

4. Using submarine cables is not a new idea.

Underwater telegraph between America and Europe

In 1854, the installation of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, which connected Newfoundland and Ireland. After 4 years, the first transmission was sent with the text: “Lows, Whitehouse received a five-minute signal. The coil signals are too weak to transmit. Try to send slowly and measuredly. I installed an intermediate pulley. Reply with coils. Agree, not a very inspiring speech (“Whitehouse” here is called Wildman Whitehouse (Wildman Whitehouse), who at that time held the position of chief electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company).

For historical background: During these four years of constructing the cable, Charles Dickens continued to write novels, Walt Whitman published the collection Leaves of Grass, a small settlement called Dallas was officially annexed to the state of Texas, and Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln) - running for the U.S. Senate - delivered his famous "A House Divided" speech.

5. Spies love submarine cables.

In the midst cold war The USSR often broadcast weakly encrypted messages between its two main naval bases. According to Russian officers, there was no need for more powerful data encryption, since the bases were directly connected by an underwater communication cable located in Soviet territorial waters, which were teeming with all kinds of sensors. They believed that the Americans would never risk starting World War III by trying to gain access to these wires.

Soviet military personnel did not take into account Halibut, a specially equipped submarine capable of slipping past defense sensors. This American boat found an underwater cable and installed a giant listening device on it, after which it returned to the site every month to collect all the recorded messages. This operation, codenamed "Ivy bells", was later compromised by former NSA analyst Ronald Pelton, who sold information about the mission to the "Soviet". Listening to underwater Internet cables is now standard procedure for most spy agencies.

6 Governments use submarine cables to avoid spying

In the field of electronic espionage, the United States had one significant advantage over other states: its scientists, engineers, and corporations took an active part in building the global telecommunications infrastructure. The main data streams cross the American border and territorial waters, which makes it possible to intercept many messages.

When documents stolen by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden were released to the public, many countries reacted with outrage at the actions of US spy agencies, which carefully monitored the transfer of foreign data. As a result, some states have overhauled the very infrastructure of the Internet. Brazil, for example, decided to lay a submarine communications cable all the way to Portugal, completely bypassing the United States. Moreover, they do not allow American companies to participate in the development of the project.

7. Underwater internet cables are faster and cheaper than satellites

We now have about 1,000 satellites in our orbit, we are sending probes to comets, and we are even planning missions to land on Mars. It seems as if it is necessary to create a virtual communication network in space, although the current approach using submarine cables is no worse. But haven't satellites surpassed this obsolete technology? As it turns out, no.

Despite the fact that fiber optic cables and satellites were invented at about the same time, spacecraft have two significant drawbacks: delay and data corruption. Sending messages to and from space really takes a long time.

Meanwhile, optical fibers can transmit information at almost the speed of light. If you want to see what the Internet would be like without submarine cables, visit Antarctica, the only continent without a physical connection to the Internet. Local research stations rely on high capacity satellites, but even that capacity is not enough to transmit all the data.

8. Forget about cyber wars - to cause real damage to the Internet, you need scuba gear and a pair of wire cutters

The good news is that cutting an underwater communication cable is quite difficult, because in each such conductor the voltage can reach several thousand volts. But as the case that occurred in Egypt in 2013 showed, it is quite possible to do this. Then, north of Alexandria, several people in diving suits were detained who deliberately cut a 12,500-mile submarine cable connecting three continents. Internet connection speed in Egypt was reduced by 60% until the line was restored.

9. Submarine cables are not easy to repair, but over 150 years we have learned a few tricks.

If you think replacing the LAN cable that sits at your desk is a difficult and painful process, try fixing a hard garden hose on the ocean floor. When underwater communications are damaged, special repair ships are sent to the site. If the wire is in shallow water, robots fix it and drag it to the surface. If the cable is located great depth(from 1900 meters), engineers lower a special grip to the bottom, raise the wire and repair it right above the water.

10. The service life of underwater Internet conductors is no more than 25 years

As of 2014, 285 communication wires have been laid on the ocean floor, 22 of which are still unused. The service life of a submarine cable does not exceed 25 years, because in the future it becomes economically unprofitable in terms of power.

However, over the past ten years, global data consumption has experienced a real "explosion". In 2013, there were 5 gigabytes of Internet traffic per person, and according to experts, by 2018 this figure will increase to 14 GB. It's entirely possible that with this rapid growth, we'll run into capacity issues and be forced to upgrade communications systems much more frequently. However, in some places, new phase modulation techniques and improved automated underwater terminals have increased power by 8,000%. So, apparently, underwater wires are more than ready for large traffic flows.

"Transatlantic Cable" redirects here; for telephone cable, see Transatlantic telephone cable. Map of laying a telegraph cable across the Atlantic ... Wikipedia

Modern cable in a section. 1. Polyethylene. 2. "Mylar" tape. 3. Stranded steel wire. 4. Aluminum water barrier. 5. Polycarbonate. 6. Copper or aluminum pipe. 7. Hydrophobic aggregate. 8 ... Wikipedia

The abbreviation TAT, depending on the context, can mean: Transatlantic telephone cable (first laid in 1956) TAT 8 transatlantic telephone cable of the 8th generation TAT 14 transatlantic line of the 14th generation ... ... Wikipedia

Clarenville City Please upload an image... Wikipedia

- (Eng. Internet, IPA: [ˈɪn.tə.net]) a worldwide system of interconnected computer networks built on the basis of IP and IP packet routing. The Internet forms a global information space, serves as the physical basis for ... ... Wikipedia

Approximate graphic representation of connections between Internet networks. Only links between servers are shown. Contents 1 Writing 2 History 3 ... Wikipedia

TAT 8 is an 8th generation transatlantic telephone cable containing 40,000 telephone circuits (simultaneous calls) between the US, France and the UK. The line was designed in 1988 by a consortium of companies led by AT T, France ... Wikipedia

Propaganda Promotion Project (PPP)- News is waves and ripples generated by deep undercurrents in a deep sea of ​​unconscious contracts, recurring myths and conditioned reflexes. As befits myths, stories contain some truth. Social myths are necessary, ... ... Dictionary of technical reality: Cultural intelligentsia social control

Telegraph- (Telegraph) Definition of the telegraph, types of telegraph Definition of the telegraph, types of telegraph, telegraph in our time Contents Contents Definition Primitive types of communication: fire, smoke and reflected light Optical First steps Heliograph Hooke's telegraph ... ... Encyclopedia of the investor