Re:Undersea Cable System Cuts in Singapore
by mmmBacon on Wednesday March 02, 2016 @11:09PM
(#11214973)
Yeah it's just not that easy with the advent of coherent optical communications in subsea networks. You need to be able to do some very complex DSP in real-time at 50Gb/s. You also need to know the exact FEC encoding scheme, grey map, actual modulation format etc... It is very non-trivial. For OOK signals I think it's somewhat doable for coherent, very, very hard. Not totally impossible but I highly doubt even CIA has this expertise.
There is a copper tube around the fiber bundle that carries high voltage (usually 10,000+ volts to reduce losses over long spans). The return is usually just coupled directly to the ocean.
If you're careful, use a non-conductive cutting blade, and have enormous balls, you can no doubt cut through the tube on one side and not cause any noticeable effects. At least, if you've brought along someplace dry to work on it...