It's insane that the coiled loading process has not been mechanized.

> How Undersea Cables Are Laid

Mostly, how they are loaded on ships.

There is another good video out there showing the cable being run from Oregon to Alaska, and it shows the cable laying process very well.

>> ^Hybrid:

It's insane that the coiled loading process has not been mechanized.


Machines dont handle fibre spooling like that with enough finesse.

The cable shown in this video is of the unarmored variety. This is mainly laid in the deep segments of cable runs, where anchor drops are least likely to cause a cut. The cables that run from the shore out to depths that are unreachable by all but the largest seafaring vessels are armored even further with Kevlar sheaths covering quite a lot more steel wires wrapped around the thin inner core of the cable you see in this video.

Laying of the cable in the deep ocean requires a plow, the cable is literally sown several feet beneath the seabed with said plow to ensure that no anchor drops, or fishing nets can cause a cable cut.

Cables are laid in areas of ocean that are marked on sea charts as 'no-drop' zones. In most nations, dropping anchor in these areas carries a MONSTROUS fine, whether you cut the cable or not.

If undersea cables get laid in any way similar to myself, I'd rather not watch the video.

"Video not found."
>> ^chilaxe:

If undersea cables get laid in any way similar to myself, I'd rather not watch the video.

There's an old Wired article written by none other than neal stephenson about the laying of undersea cabling. I believe this is it, though I haven't re-read it yet:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html?topic=&topic_set=

Tags for this video have been changed from 'undersea cable, bandwidth, cable, underwater, alcatel, fiber, optics' to 'undersea cable, bandwidth, cable, underwater, alcatel, fiber optics' - edited by lucky760

Like it, but the post title is misleading. The video doesn't show how the cable is laid, just how it's loaded onto the ship. I'd like to see them actually laying the cable. I don't know how to use google. Someone please provide a link.

"How undersea cables are laid"

Tron: Jeremy

http://www.pipeinternational.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&Itemid=65&limitstart=290

This is the link for a recent international fibre link from Sydney Australia, to Guam. Page 30 (the first page of the blog). If you go to the bottom, you can see the page numbers. This blog details every single step of a cable lay from day 1, right up to lighting the fibre.

Pretty cool.

@charliem: Quality research. Thanks for that. After scanning a few pages, I'm fascinated. Now if only they'd put it in video format (is there really no such thing?) I'd be set, because I don't know how to read.

Well, in honesty, I covered the cable lay (PPC-1) for a final year project in my telecoms eng. course, so it wasn't a recent research effort

Theres a few videos of them pulling the fibre through the manholes on land, and at the manhole underwater too. A few shots of the side-scanners, and the plough, and the amplifiers, and the divers placing it on the seabed in shallow waters...just a massive ammount of content. It also covers the deployment of the datacentres that feed the fibre.

Very cool and transparent project. I was going to buy shares when they opened, but didnt have the capital at the time
They opened at something like 20c, and the company sold to an aussie ISP here for something like $3 ea. Insane stock growth over 18 months.

great analogy ~7min mark