Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Right now EUNetworks is clearly the best carrier for Layer 1 Western European network capacity. I work on a daily basis with them. The carrier offers the best combination of performance, price, and commercial flexibility. They are my default go-to provider. Note they offer wavelengths, spectrum, and metro dark fibre among other services. For ISPs they offer lower latency general bandwidth routes than their competitors. This is a big deal for African and Asian ISPs who already endure high latency to the distances between Europe and these other continents. Their new Digital Super Highways are quite attractive. These massive upgrades of the standard Western Europe routes give them a distinct edge over the 2000 era networks of their competitors. Arelion is the best transit provider, but Hurricane Electric should be a part of the upstream mix as well. RETN also has good transit. All three are in the top 15 ASN ranking which is a measure of the number of BGP links to other ISPs. These ...

It is standard practice to bury subsea cables in shallow waters. This generally means the ocean or sea lying above the continental shelf. The shelf is really just that part of the continent that is submerged under water during the warm periods between the earth's recurring ice ages. During interglacial periods like now the shelves remain submerged and during each ice age the shelves become dry land as the sea levels fall due to less precipitation. Precipitation declines as the earth becomes colder and water is locked up in snow, ice, and glaciers on dry land. Indeed, during the last ice age the oceans were about 130 meters lower than today's levels and the continental shelves were dry land. In general, the continental shelves range from 100 to 200 meters below the water surface. At the continental shelf's edge the depths plunge down a steep slope to the bottom of the ocean. The purpose of burying is to protect a fibre optic cable from its most ferocious predators and enemi...