back to article Sea-Me-We 5 construction starts

Construction has begun on the next major submarine cable, which when it's completed in 2016 will provide a big increase in capacity between South-East Asia and Europe. Sea-Me-We-5 has a design capacity of 24 Tbps, and will run 20,000 km to link Singapore at one end and France at the other. Presuming there are no construction …

  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    GCHQ proof

    Alcatel-Lucent have insisted that all messages on the cable are in French rendering them completely unintelligible to British intelligence

    1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: GCHQ proof

      Can't the French speak slowly and loudly in English like every other Johnny Foreigner should?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: GCHQ proof

        Unfortunately that only works with foreigners.

        While speaking slowly and loudly in English naturally allows foreigners to understand that only works for English - foreign languages aren't comprehensible by normal chaps.

  2. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Down Under

    Sounds like Oz hasn't figured out where they want to install their data aggregation facility yet.

    1. Ralph B

      Re: Down Under

      Nevermind. Maybe the Ozzies will be able to catch some bandwidth from an occasional wayward Loon balloon.

  3. Mark 85

    Lots of interesting places there....

    With the exception of two or three, the rest are so-called troublespots with revolutions, wars, and assorted terror attacks occurring frequently.

  4. Alain

    Thailand

    With the amount of internet censorship currently being put in place in Thailand by the military junta, I don't expect that this cable will provide a much improved internet experience to people there. Traffic has has started slowing down dramatically since the Great Leader has announced that no effort will be spared to stamp out "inadequate" network activity. Can't help but thinking this is due to filtering equipment being put online (by incompetent and lazy people as usual in government agencies there).

    And in the foreseeable future I would definitely count Thailand among the potentially explosive countries that might cause trouble to this shiny new data pipe. Especially since according to the cable map found online, it lands in the unrest-ridden south.

    Fortunately, it seems to be an end point.

  5. Devon_Custard

    "Sea-Me-We"... seriously?

    1. Ross K Silver badge
      Holmes

      "Sea-Me-We"... seriously?

      South

      East

      Asia

      Middle

      East

      Western

      Europe

      What would you call it?

      1. Tromos

        Re: "Sea-Me-We"... seriously?

        I'd call it anything that didn't sound like it was something to do with lovers of "watersports".

        1. AdamT

          Re: "Sea-Me-We"... seriously?

          Well, I worked on the first Sea-Me-We project in the early 90s (in a very minor capacity) and I can assure you we were making all the same comments and sniggering like 12 year olds then too.

          1. Simon Harris
            Coat

            Re: "Sea-Me-We"... seriously?

            Will they be filling the sea with that 'special chemical' they put in swimming pools so they can find data leaks?

          2. Bunbury
            Pint

            Re: "Sea-Me-We"... seriously?

            I was involved in this route early doors too (though I'd thought it was in the 80s). Any other configuration would have been less sniggering so seems very sensible that it was called that. Well done thos puerile namers of yesteryear!

  6. VinceH
    Black Helicopters

    "Construction has begun on the next major submarine cable, which when it's completed in 2016 will provide a big increase in capacity between South-East Asia and Europe."

    Bidding now open for tapping...

    1. Elmer Phud

      tap tap tappitty tap

      Bidding?

      Sounds like the deals have been already sorted - pick any landing point, there's yer tap.

      All done for local 'national securiity' of course.

  7. John Finlay
    Facepalm

    smw3 as predecessor?

    call me over-analytical, but even if I wasn't already aware of it's existence, when writing the article I probably would have questioned if there wasn't in fact a cable called SMW*4* in existence for SMW5 to be the successor to..?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bugging a cable under construction

    Wouldn't this be the ideal time for the US to send the Jimmy Carter down to tap that cable? They won't be able to notice it when it isn't yet operational, solving the (potential) issues with bugging it later.

    That assumes Alcatel-Lucent isn't directly cooperating with the NSA to build in the taps and save us the effort of doing it surreptitiously (though the NSA is so paranoid they'd probably tap it on their own as well "just in case" Alcatel-Lucent changes their mind down the road and turns off the build-in tap!)

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Bugging a cable under construction

      There isn't really any need to do super ninja submarine cable taps (which are rather trickier with a modern fibre cable than they were int he days of telephones) when the cable lands at a dozen countries who are all very willing to assisting their friends .

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bugging a cable under construction

      It would be noticed. The OTDR responses would change. The cable is monitored while it's being installed in case it breaks or stretches or otherwise undergoes damage.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bugging a cable under construction

      Tapping the cable directly would be pointless. What sensible analysis can be undertaken on 24Tbps of data in anything like real time? It's much easier to do this on land and to focus on communications of interest rather than "everything".

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