https://subseacables.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-british-empires-resilient-subsea.html Skip to main content Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure Blog is devoted to educating readers about the subsea cable industry with a particular focus on recent events and new submarine cable projects. Ideal for those in the industry who wants breaking news on outages, new projects, and general industry trends. Roderick Beck worked as a sales contractor for Hibernia Atlantic and helps buyers procure capacity and providers make sales. The British Empire's Resilient Subsea Telegraph Network * Get link * Facebook * X * Pinterest * Email * Other Apps December 29, 2025 The British empire had largely completed its Red Line cable network by 1902. This network allowed news and messages to be delivered in a few minutes or several hours at most depending on the message queue's length. It spanned the globe and formed a network ring so traffic could be routed in the opposite direction in case of disruption. It was, as Dr. Michael Delaunay has argued, a highly resilient network. Besides the ring configuration, the network relied on multiple cables between any pair of given end points to ensure uptime. The British military believed it would be impossible for an enemy to cut enough cables on any route to sever all communications between any given pair of end points. The Committee of Imperial Defense concluded that 57 cables must be shut down to isolate the British Isles from the Red Line network. The figure was 15 for Canada and 7 for South Africa. The Empire was self sufficient in terms of manufacturing the components for a subsea telegraph cable and repairing it. Its navy had no peers. Map of the British Empires Global Telegraph Network British Empire global network Red Line. resilient subsea cables telegraphy * Get link * Facebook * X * Pinterest * Email * Other Apps Comments Post a Comment Popular posts from this blog The Short Life Expectancy of Starlink's LEO Satellites July 07, 2025 Image According to FCC filings Starlink shut down almost 500 Starlink satellites during the first half of 2025. The company had them reenter the atmosphere where they burned up. What is striking is that these satellites were all less than 5 years old. The general consensus is that LEOs have a life expectancy ranging from 5 to 8 years. Shorter than expected life spans for the satellites will hit Starlink's income statement hard by increasing network depreciation and replacement needs. However, Starlink has managed to lower its LEO's manufacturing costs down to $500K versus initial figures around $1 million. So these production economies of scale might offset some of the higher than expected depreciation. However, there are also rocket launch costs as well. It costs Starlink about $3 million to put a satellite into orbit. The Falcon 9 costs $67 million per flight and delivers 23 LEOs into low Earth orbit. As a private company Starlink financials are a bit of mystery. The company press ... Read more Here We Go Again: Several Major Cables Down Off Yemen September 08, 2025 Image Three industry insiders have confirmed the 'epicenter' of the outages is in Yemen coastal waters at a depth of only one 100 meters. This strongly suggests fishing or more likely an anchor is responsible. Multiple sources have told me that neither Egyptian or Saudi Internet services has been degraded, but the Persian Gulf has been hit hard as well as Pakistan. This is consistent with the epicenter being off Yemen. It is also consistent with the cables reported down below. Four Cables Definitely Down: 1. EIG. 2. SWM4. 3. IMEWE. 4. Falcon Lower left map is SMW4. Center is EIG. Far right is IMEWE. Total capacity of these four cables is approximately 44 Tbps. Pakistan is heavily dependent on SWM4, EIG, and IMEWE. Scattered reports initially suggest AAE1 may also be down. But it is not. Read more Powered by Blogger Theme images by Michael Elkan Contact Form Name [ ] Email * [ ] Message * [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [Send] Search This Blog [ ] [Search] Popular posts from this blog The Short Life Expectancy of Starlink's LEO Satellites July 07, 2025 Image According to FCC filings Starlink shut down almost 500 Starlink satellites during the first half of 2025. The company had them reenter the atmosphere where they burned up. What is striking is that these satellites were all less than 5 years old. The general consensus is that LEOs have a life expectancy ranging from 5 to 8 years. Shorter than expected life spans for the satellites will hit Starlink's income statement hard by increasing network depreciation and replacement needs. However, Starlink has managed to lower its LEO's manufacturing costs down to $500K versus initial figures around $1 million. So these production economies of scale might offset some of the higher than expected depreciation. However, there are also rocket launch costs as well. It costs Starlink about $3 million to put a satellite into orbit. The Falcon 9 costs $67 million per flight and delivers 23 LEOs into low Earth orbit. As a private company Starlink financials are a bit of mystery. The company press ... Read more Southern Cross Subsea Cable Network Deploys Ciena's Granular Layer 1 Wavelength Product November 19, 2024 Image Southern Cross subsea cable system is implementing ODUflex, which is a relatively new ITU standard that allows granular Layer 1 bandwidth. No longer are we limited to 100G, 400G, and 800G for either subsea or terrestrial networks. Interestingly enough, Hauwei proposed the new standard and was its primary champion. All wavelengths consist of optical containers and ODUflex allows optical containers to be stacked at 1.25 Gps intervals. So you can lease 1.25 Gbps wavelength up to 400G in 1.25 Gbps increments. Note that port sizes are still 10G, 100G, 400G or 800G. So to access a 150G transmission rate the customer needs 400G intefaces. Ciena is one of the the vendors to implement ODUflex along with Hauwei. More details here: https:// lnkd.in/dZvNbubc. It is worth noting that granular bandwidth is being implemented on the newer cables which Southern Cross owns like Next. The commercial motivation is poor take up of 400G wavelengths. The only real customers for 400Gs are very big bandwi... Read more Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure Blog is devoted to educating readers about the subsea cable industry with a particular focus on recent events and new submarine cable projects. Ideal for those in the industry who wants breaking news on outages, new projects, and general industry trends. Roderick Beck worked as a sales contractor for Hibernia Atlantic and helps buyers procure capacity and providers make sales. Archive * December 202515 * November 202513 * October 202510 * September 202520 * August 202515 * July 202514 * June 202524 * May 202518 * April 202524 * March 202516 * February 202522 * January 202527 * December 202424 * November 202415 * October 202426 * September 202420 * August 202440 * July 202412 Show more Show less Followers My photo Roderick S. Beck Budapest, Michigan, Tallinn, Estonia Visit profile Archive * December 202515 * November 202513 * October 202510 * September 202520 * August 202515 * July 202514 * June 202524 * May 202518 * April 202524 * March 202516 * February 202522 * January 202527 * December 202424 * November 202415 * October 202426 * September 202420 * August 202440 * July 202412 Show more Show less Labels * . * 1 Petabit * 1 petabit per second * 1 terabit capacity. * 10 gigabit wavelengths * 100G * 100G Port * 100G Pricing * 100G pricing. * 100G wavelength * 100G wavelengths * 100G. * 10G * 10G pricing * 16 fibre pairs * 2026 * 2africa * 3 year contract * 400G * 400G backbone * 48 fibre pairs * 96 fibre pairs * AAE1 * AAE2 * AAE2. * abundant power. * Accra PAIX * ACE * ACE cable * acquistion * ADC * Adelaide * advantages * advice * AEC-1 * AEC-2 * Africa * Africa-1 * ai * AI chips * air conditioning * Airraq * Alaska * allocations. * alternatives * AM5 * AM7 * Amazon * Amazon. * Ameer terrestrial route * 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