地球海底光缆分布图 - 2013年

海底光缆对于现代的地球人类来说其重要性毋庸置疑，犹如人体中的神经网路无时不在传递着大量信息，如果其中某几根发生故障，其影响区域的人们最切实的感觉是“生活倒退了几十年”，在这个无网不快的年代，网络连接已经和空气与水一样成为生活的必需品，因为它承载着生存的必须品：“信息”，下面的海底光缆图是依照古典制图美学设计的2013年版的最新详图，由电信地理网站绘制，分为“交互版”和“大图版”，其中“交互版”能够获得最多的详细信息，“大图版”就是下面图片的放大版，点击下面有链接的图片即可。

Submarine cable map details the secret world of the underwater internet

By James Plafke on February 1, 2013 at 1:33 pm

Even though we’re living in 2013 and can stream entire seasons of TV shows in between banking and sending work emails on our phone alone, sending data around the world is not exactly an easy feat. The internet exists how it does today thanks to the help of cables sunk deep into the world’s oceans. A new, gorgeous map details the world’s submarine cables as they appear in 2013, and shows us where the underwater internet is headed in the future.

A couple of years ago, we took at a look at a map detailing the world of submarine cables as it looked in 2011. Since they run across the world and through the oceans, you might be imagining the cables with a thick, sci-fi style diameter that you generally see sprouting up from or traveling through a spaceship’s infrastructure. However, the submarine cables are only around three inches thick and are packed with just a few optic fibers, but they can manage astonishing data transfer rates of 40Gbps to 10Tbps — and they will only get faster. As we’ve previously mentioned, submarine cables date much further back in time than you may initially think, with the first transatlantic cables being set up during the 1860s, and the first transpacific cables being set up back in the early 1900s.

Now, in 2013, the submarine cable network is as strong and comprehensive as ever, but there is still more room for it to grow. The map (seen below) not only shows all of the cables installed since 1992, but 12 new cables that are planned to be installed sometime over the course of this year.

Creators of the above map, TeleGeography, released an interactive version as well, so you can zoom into whichever portion and learn more about the underwater internet that most likely never occupied too much of your thoughts. The bottom of the chart is home to a timeline of all the cables installed since 1992, while the globe portion of the map shows exactly between which two ports a line runs, as well as the lines’ capacities. The network latency between countries is also displayed on the map as well, with Brazil generally getting the short end of the submarine cable capacity stick. In total, the map shows 232 currently operational routes, along with the 12 planned routes.

TeleGeography based the map’s aesthetic on old astrology charts and antique maps, which is why it might remind you a bit of BioShock. If you want to display your love of submarine cables, or simply want to pay homage to a large portion of what helps the internet work but doesn’t really get too much public credit, you can obtain a printed version of the map, which measures in at 50×36 inches and is printed on Yupo, a synthetic material.

Now read: The secret world of submarine cables

2 of 2

Additional:

There are two main data transfer protocols — Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). If you only had to know one fact about each protocol, it’s that TCP is slower because it takes time to check for errors, and UDP is faster because it doesn’t check for errors as much. Obviously, as shown by both protocols, having to vigorously check for errors limits the speed of a transfer protocol, but Fujitsu has announced that it has found a way to add error-checking into a UDP-like protocol and keep the higher speed.

 Wikipedia: Global Internet usage