The TAT-14 telecommunications cable, which consists of two 19-year-old cables, is being decommissioned. This operation, carried out by Subsea Environmental Services, involves the recovery and recycling of the cable and bases, from land to deep water segments in the North Atlantic.
The first phase started in mid-April and will be completed by the end of 2021. It only concerns the onshore part, with the recovery of the coastal ends in Denmark and the Netherlands, but this work is not necessarily the easiest...

More than a year of planning has been required to consider the interests of multiple stakeholders in licensing, borders and jurisdictions, constructed buildings, crossings, and considerations of proximity to third party assets in various countries.

While the experiment is not new, it is being closely followed by the entire submarine cable community. It should allow for the identification of risks, analysis and implementation of necessary mitigations, while maintaining operations within a tight project schedule. Careful consideration of the project's impact on waste, environmental factors and opportunities to reuse portions are also examined.

Connecting Northern Europe directly to North America, TAT-14 has been replaced by the new Havfrue / AEC-2 cable since last month. This cable connects Denmark and Norway to the US, with a future extension planned for Ireland.

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Source : Datacenter Magazine

The dependence on digital and its infrastructures is increasing every day. To ensure their independence, the majors of the sector therefore invest in the network (Internet). Sophy Caulier reveals, in an article in Le Monde Économie on June 24, the battle that is being played out between the various players on this gigantic network.

Composed of three main elements: data centres, networks and interconnection points, the Internet is indeed a physical network. The cumulative length of the submarine cables is thirty times around the Earth, or 1.2 million kilometres. However, even though this infrastructure was built to be resilient, it is on the verge of overdose. For information, Netflix occupied one third of the bandwidth in the United States during peak hours in 2016. Another example: in 2018, companies are increasingly storing their data on the cloud with more than 20% growth for the French market. But the risk of overloading the network does not really worry.

The main threat is actually the breakage of submarine or land cables that can cause an Internet outage for several days. This was the case at the beginning of the year in about ten countries on the west coast of Africa. The infrastructure therefore remains fragile despite the redundancy of cables. Companies like OVH, InterCloud or Colt choose to build their own network to protect themselves but also to reduce costs and guarantee quality services to their customers.

GAFAM, which has had data centres for a long time, is also investing heavily in cables. "They deploy their own cables to interconnect their data centers on all continents without going through telecom operators. The challenge for these actors is to set the costs. In other words, they'd rather own than rent! "says Jean-Luc Lemmens, director of Idate DigiWorld's Media-Telecom division.

But when it comes to developing countries or certain geographical areas too far from cables, Internet giants deploy networks via satellites, UAVs or balloons. Amazon, Facebook, Virgin or SoftBank also have great satellite ambitions. Nothing seems to be able to stop the almighty GAFAM in their race to control the armature of the Net.

Click here to read an extract of the article (full article if you subscribe to Le Monde).


Source: Le Monde Économie

[French article]

Contrairement à ce que beaucoup imaginent, Internet ne flotte pas dans l‘air. Il existe grâce à des câbles, datacenters et IXP contrôlés par des entreprises. Francesca Musiani, chargée de recherches au CNRS, explique pourquoi il est nécessaire de comprendre ces rouages afin d’être un internaute avisé.

La spécialiste des architectures de l’Internet nous présente dans une vidéo diffusée par Treize Minutes les dessous d’un monde encore trop méconnu. Les infrastructures réseaux font en sorte que leur fonctionnement reste discret, si bien que l’on ne prend conscience de leur existence qu’au moment où Internet atteint ses limites, qui sont bel et bien matérielles. Pourtant, il est primordial de mieux conceptualiser cet outil du quotidien, qui est bien plus tentaculaire qu’il n’y paraît.

Voir la vidéo

En effet, elle soulève le fait que les diverses infrastructures Internet sont sous le contrôle d’entreprises qui poursuivent leur intérêt propre. Un fait qu’il faut bien comprendre, notamment en cette période où la protection des données personnelles et la manipulation de l’information sont au cœur de tous les débats.

Dans un article de Libération rédigé par Amaelle Guiton, Francesca aborde le sujet du projet de loi sur la lutte contre les « fake news ». Pour elle, l’essentiel du problème ne réside pas dans l’émetteur de ces fausses informations, mais dans le fonctionnement-même des grandes plateformes sur lesquelles elles sont diffusées.

Leur modèle économique leur permet de propager des informations plus rapidement que tous les autres supports, qu’elles soient réelles ou infondées. Ainsi, une solution serait de rendre plus transparente l’activité de ces émetteurs de contenu. Par l’intervention d’entités tierces ciblant l’origine systémique du problème, Francesca espère pouvoir le résoudre sans bouleverser tout le fonctionnement des grandes plateformes. De plus, elle estime que le monopole de l’information en ligne par certaines entreprises est aussi une des sources du problème, qui pourrait être palliée par l’émergence de nouveaux acteurs. Des pistes de solutions intéressantes à découvrir dans cet article.

Lire l'article

Sources : Treize Minutes, Libération, Amaelle Guiton.

Some 400 submarine cables weave an invisible yet crucial network for our connected world. 1.3 million kilometers long, they are essential to the proper functioning of the Internet and account for 99% of intercontinental trade. These little-known infrastructures are attracting more than ever the envy of States, intelligence services and Internet giants.

Find the show Le Dessous des cartes, Câbles sous-marins : la guerre invisible in replay here.

This video is available until June 14th, 2018 only.

Source : Arte VOD-DVD