Showing posts with label ArcGIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ArcGIS. Show all posts

July 16, 2011

Undersea Internet Cables-See Them for Yourself

I've always been interested in maps, geography, and geospatial information systems (GIS).
Coming across Greg's Cable Map--I thought this is sort of idiosyncratic, but fascinating too.
This is an interactive map of our global undersea telecommunications infrastructure.
If you ever wondered how you were able to connect with someone anywhere in the world in split seconds (satellites aside--since we all don't have immediate access to that), here it is.
How it works: Either you can search the list of cables of the right, click on any one of interest and it highlights it on the map for you or vice versa click on a telecommunications link on the map and it bring up in the right-hand column the points of the cable landings and reference to more information .
Another cool feature, is the ability to display the telecommunications infrastructure from before, during, or since any period of time--so you can get a historical perspective of what the Internet for example looked like or didn't look like only ten or fifteen years ago. Can anyone say carrier pigeon? :-)
There is also the ability to click on the bottom of the map on the check boxes for either or both the active or future cable links to see where we are now ("as-is") and where we are going ("to-be") in terms of Internet connectivity.
Next time you read in the newspaper about a large-scale Internet outage like the multiple ones that occurred when undersea cables were cut in the Mediterranean in 2008 causing outages from the Mideast to India, you can look it up here and see for yourself how "the foot bones connected to the ankle bone."
Enjoy and have a good weekend!

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