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Hit hard by the internet crash in 2000 cable laying ships (video) were hard pressed to find contracts laying subsea communication cable and took on less traditional projects like oceanographic research (see video below).

With eight long years behind us and the internet seeing a rebirth in what is called Web 2.0, the impressive cable laying ships are back in business. The SMH writes:

It grabbed the attention of wave riders this morning, but surfers of the web are likely to benefit most from a large ship moored near Sydney’s eastern suburbs beaches.

French vessel Ile De Sein was moored off Tamarama Beach this morning, as part of a project to lay 9000 kilometres of submarine cable between Sydney and Hawaii.

The cable, being laid by telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent in partnership with Telstra, aims to boost the internet capacity between Australia and the US.

“The explosion of user-generated online content means we need more capacity than ever before with the United States, which is already the destination for two-thirds of all Australian traffic on the internet,” Telstra Wholesale’s Kate McKenzie said.

The cable is expected to be active by the end of the year.

The presence of the large ship so close to shore brought back memories of the Pasha Bulker, the bulk carrier that ran aground on Nobbys Beach, Newcastle, following a storm last year.

But a police spokesman said Ile De Sein had not issued any distress calls this morning. Continue Reading…

Watch The Video

CNET has put together an interesting slideshow detailing the operation. [Continue Reading →]

 

 Cable Laying Ship: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Submarine cables world map. Click here for full-size version (Graphic: Telegeography.com)

Sea-Fever’s Peter Mello submitted the following story to our Maritime News Discoverer;

A flotilla of ships may have been dispatched to reinstate the broken submarine cable that has left the Middle East and India struggling to communicate with the rest of the world, but it took just one vessel to inflict the damage that brought down the internet for millions.

According to reports, the internet blackout, which has left 75 million people with only limited access, was caused by a ship that tried to moor off the coast of Egypt in bad weather on Wednesday. Since then phone and internet traffic has been severely reduced across a huge swath of the region, slashed by as much as 70% in countries including India, Egypt and Dubai.

While tens of millions have been directly affected, the impact of the blackout has spread far wider, with economies across Asia and the Middle East struggling to cope. Governments have also become directly involved, with the Egyptian communications ministry imploring surfers to stay offline so business traffic can take priority. “People who download music and films are going to affect businesses who have more important things to do,” said ministry spokesman Mohammed Taymur. Continue Reading At The Guardian…

Chart Of The Cable

Graph Of Affected Areas

(Source: Renesys)

UPDATE: 2nd Cable Reported Cut

The BBC Tells Us:

The first cable - the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) - was cut at 0800 on 30 January, the firm said.

INSIDE A SUBMARINE CABLE 1 Polyethylene cover 2,4 Stranded steel armour wires 3,5 Tar-soaked nylon yarn 6 Polycarbonate insulator 7 Copper sheath 8 Protective core 9 Optical fibres Not to scale

A second cable thought to lie alongside it - SEA-ME-WE 4, or the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable - was also split.

FLAG is a 28,000km (17,400 mile) long submarine communications cable that links Australia and Japan with Europe via India and the Middle East.

SEA-ME-WE 4 is a submarine cable linking South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

The two cable cuts meant that the only cable in service connecting Europe to the Middle East via Egypt was the older Sea-M-We 3 system, according to research firm TeleGeography.

The firm said the cuts reduced the amount of available capacity on the stretch of network between India and Europe by 75% percent.

As a result, carriers in Egypt and the Middle East re-routed their European traffic around the globe, through South East Asia and across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Continue Reading…

Related Links:

• Study on Subsea Cable Cuts
  
• Live Internet Status Report
• How To Fix An Undersea Cable

UPDATE 2:

The AP is reporting: Ships did not cut internet cable 

WebUrbanist brings us their Top 6 picks for luxury subsea accommodation. The above picture is of The Posiedon Myster Island:

The Poseidon Mystery Island is competing for the title of the world’s first luxury underwater resort. The complex will be designed by Bruce Jones, famous for designing a series of $80-million luxury submarines with their own private state rooms and plush carpets, designed for voyages of up to three weeks in length. The project will cost $105 million and will be submerged next to a private island at a depth of 40 feet with an amazing view of the ocean floor.

You can find the next five hotels HERE.

We have taken a look at ways to harness the ocean’s immense power before but this alternative energy solutions is slightly different. Using subsea moorings and 100′ diameter turbines this solution targets Gulf Stream currents to produce power. Inhabitat.com tells us;

The idea is to have underwater turbines placed right in the middle of the Gulf Stream current. The turbines are designed to be about 100 feet in diameter. These will be connected to a buoy that holds the electricity generating equipment. The gulf stream carries billions of gallons per minute, so the impact of these turbines would be minimal if negligible to the current itself.

Look for the first prototype to be launched by Dania Beach Florida based Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology in the first quarter of 2008.

(You can find related multimedia HERE)

 

 Prototype Subsea Ocean Current Turbine - Animation [0:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download