Internet

Some of the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in Telecom Are Happening in Africa Right Now

When we look through some of the most interesting telecom stories from the last month, a theme emerges.

There's a lot of submarine cable and data center news coming out of Africa. 

We've selected stories about Facebook's plan to bring cheap internet to Africa, as well as a profile on Equiano, Google's new private subsea cable connecting Portugal and South Africa.

Will New Satellites End the Dominance of Submarine Cables?

There’s been a lot in the press recently about new low-orbit satellites. Rumors abound about content providers wanting to move their internet traffic off of the ocean floor and into space.

Going Where No Internet Has Gone Before

When you look to the night sky, do you think of the potential that satellites have to bring connectivity to geographies underserved by submarine cables? No?

Well maybe you will after reading one our recommended reads from PTC. This post unpacks the distribution of internet access across the world's population. There are still plenty of places that submarine cables don't reach, which makes satellites an appealing option for filling the void.

Are Content Providers The Biggest Investors in New Submarine Cables?

We’ve written quite a bit about content provider’s investments in new cables. And we’ve seen headlines about Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook’s big new investments. So does that mean that content providers are the largest investors in new submarine cables?

Data Center Interconnect Goes Undersea: Addressing Voracious Submarine Bandwidth Growth

The majority of new submarine capacity upgrades and cable deployments are designed to address the voracious growth in data flowing between large data centers via submerged information superhighways.

There is simply no networking technology that comes close to optical networks in terms of scalability, reliability, and economies of scale. This means, that as an industry, we must continue to rapidly innovate upon submarine optical networking technology today, and well into the future.

Are New Cables Avoiding Landing in the UK Because of Brexit?

Is it true that new cables are avoiding landing in the UK because of the Brexit vote?

I was curious to see if there was any validity to this myth, so I took a closer look.

Do Human Senses Provide the Ultimate Cap on Bandwidth?

Our thirst for bandwidth must have a ceiling. It just must.

In our first-ever user-submitted myth, Chief Engineer of the Australia-Japan Cable Phil Murphy asked our experts a tough one. If it were possible to create the ultimate VR device that delivered a fully-immersive experience—catering to all possible sensory inputs—what would the bandwidth be and would our own senses create a cap?

In short: will sensory overload dictate an eventual bandwidth ceiling?

Will Fiber Pairs Become the New Coin of the Realm?

Have you heard that submarine cable fiber pairs will eventually become a standard unit of purchase? I have. And it prompted me to roll up my sleeves and do some fact-checking.

Are people going to be buying fiber pairs? Will carriers? Enterprises?

Are Current Industry Practices Enough to Accommodate Future Capacity Requirements?

The submarine cable industry’s current practices will sustain our future capacity requirements. We definitely have enough capacity to take us well into the future. Right?

Does 70% of the World’s Internet Traffic Flow Through Virginia?

Have you heard the one about 70% of the world’s internet traffic flowing through northern Virginia? This factoid has been cited in The Washington Post and Business Insider, among other major publications and government websites.

This statistic always seemed a little unlikely to us, so we sought out a few different ways to test its validity.

 

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