It’s been a year since the U.S. government denied a cable license to the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), setting off a chain reaction that's disrupted the trans-Pacific submarine cable market.
We often say that we'll be taking a "deep dive" into an issue at the beginning of our podcasts. Today we almost mean that literally, as Greg welcomes TeleGeography Research Director Alan Mauldin to talk about submarine cables.
Be honest: do you actually know how many kilometers of submarine cables live under the ocean? Do you know the obscure locations that got a new cable in 2020? Or what actually damages cables? (Don't say sharks.)
You may have been scrolling through our blogs about recent cable breaks. Or perhaps there's been an uptick in cable fault chatter online. Either way, disruptions to service have made their way into a few spring headlines.
But it's worth remembering that where there have been faults, there have also been repairs.
There's been a lot of press about delayed approval for the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) cable, which is due to connect Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines to the United States.
You can understand why this cable has gotten extra attention. Backers include Google, Facebook, and Pacific Light Data Communication (PLDC), which is owned by Chinese ISP Dr. Peng Telecom & Media Group.
While the whole system is awaiting approval from U.S. authorities, Google and Facebook have requested that the FCC allow activation of the Taiwan and Philippines portions of the cable.
The telecom space is loaded with acronyms. (Take this from the people who recently published a post about the difference between IP VPN, DIA, and EVPN.)
Today our Business Broadband Research Service team is giving telecom newbies and pros alike the broadband acronym cheatsheet of their dreams.
Only a few of the world’s largest internet backbone providers get transit-free status, exchanging all of their traffic with other backbone providers via peering.
Alas, downstream internet service providers (ISPs), content providers, and other internet operators must purchase at least some upstream “transit” in order to connect their internal networks to the internet at large.
What's the difference between VPN, DIA, and EVPN, you ask?
Where to start? Here are some key definitions that we use in our research.
Today we answer the burning question "what is peering and how does it work?"
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