March 17, 2009 at 16:12The man who fixed the Internet
Remember how in December 2008 the Middle East and part of Asia turned out to be practically disconnected from the Internet due to damage to submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea (75% of the traffic between the Middle East and Europe passes through them)? Then the problem was quickly fixed. Everyone forgot about her. But we still did not understand how these cables were repaired, who did all the work. Journalists conducted an investigation and even found out the name of this man.
57-year-old Scot John Rennie is the chief underwater engineer on the Wave Sentinel, a ship owned and operated by Global Marine Systems, a British cable-laying and maintenance company in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was Renny who used the joystick to control the “The Beast” module (weight 6 tons, cost $ 10 million, equipped with metal detectors, video cameras), which performed all the black work at a kilometer depth. In the photo they are together.
In general, submarine cables are permanently damaged (Internet brakes usually go unnoticed). Literally every day there are tearing signals when the cable is hit by an anchor or fishing net. However, on December 19, 2008, three cables were immediately damaged in the Mediterranean Sea.
Egypt is almost completely disconnected from the Internet (80% of external channels are disconnected). The Middle East, Southeast Asia, up to Taiwan and Malaysia, were hit hard, and even the army of Indian programmers felt the problems.
Perhaps the incident in the Mediterranean Sea occurred as a result of sabotage (through these cables, the US Army Command Center provides operational control of troop groups in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the instant transmission of video and photos from the battlefield is critical for the Center to work effectively). Other versions: ship's anchor or underwater seismic activity.
This whole story is another reminder that without constant maintenance, the Internet will very quickly break up into separate fragments, because no more than 10% of world traffic passes through satellites. In addition, it is now clear that the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most vulnerable places in the entire world system of submarine cables , of which about 800,000 km have already been laid.
via Popular Science
57-year-old Scot John Rennie is the chief underwater engineer on the Wave Sentinel, a ship owned and operated by Global Marine Systems, a British cable-laying and maintenance company in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was Renny who used the joystick to control the “The Beast” module (weight 6 tons, cost $ 10 million, equipped with metal detectors, video cameras), which performed all the black work at a kilometer depth. In the photo they are together.
In general, submarine cables are permanently damaged (Internet brakes usually go unnoticed). Literally every day there are tearing signals when the cable is hit by an anchor or fishing net. However, on December 19, 2008, three cables were immediately damaged in the Mediterranean Sea.
Egypt is almost completely disconnected from the Internet (80% of external channels are disconnected). The Middle East, Southeast Asia, up to Taiwan and Malaysia, were hit hard, and even the army of Indian programmers felt the problems.
Perhaps the incident in the Mediterranean Sea occurred as a result of sabotage (through these cables, the US Army Command Center provides operational control of troop groups in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the instant transmission of video and photos from the battlefield is critical for the Center to work effectively). Other versions: ship's anchor or underwater seismic activity.
This whole story is another reminder that without constant maintenance, the Internet will very quickly break up into separate fragments, because no more than 10% of world traffic passes through satellites. In addition, it is now clear that the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most vulnerable places in the entire world system of submarine cables , of which about 800,000 km have already been laid.
via Popular Science