[102221] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Sicily to Egypt undersea cable disruption
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Fri Feb 1 18:27:50 2008
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:11:46 +0000
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
To: "Rod Beck" <Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com>
Cc: "Martin Hannigan" <hannigan@gmail.com>,
"Ahmed Maged \(amaged\)"
<amaged@cisco.com>, <nanog@merit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <71CB284A12EDA54880FF588A8BAC0BE20E4F53@ernie.HiberniaAtlantic.local>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:07:16 -0000
"Rod Beck" <Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> TransAtlantic cables average three repairs a year. That's the
> industry average. So given 7 high capacity cable systems, that's 21
> repairs a year.
>
> Now, not all damaged cables go out of service. In fact, most stay in
> service until the repair begins.
>
> But the public rarely hears about a TransAtlantic cable going dark.
> Yet it does happen quite regularly in the business.
>
> Why? Because there are seven very high capacity (multi-terabit)
> systems to route traffic across! There is no need to announce to the
> public that a cable been cut.
>
> That is not the case in the Midterranean or the Persian Gulf.
>
> You have only a few systems (relatively low capacity) serving a huge
> population. In fact, I suspect Flag is probably the sole provider for
> many of these countries.
>
> So yes, when the only guy in town falls down, it's going to be
> noticed.
>
I hope you're right. As I noted, by profession I'm paranoid. I've
even contemplated the uses of deliberate cable cuts; see
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/papers/reroute.pdf for some thoughts
from five years ago.
But I hope you're right.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
