[LINK] Copper versus Fibre under water

[Tom Koltai]

I offer as an example, the underwater Telegraph cable from Darwin to
Singapore via Java although slightly better protected than normal
twisted pair RJ-11 in the pit..

Lasted 59 and 70 years. (The difference was the cable that lasted 70
years was all underwater and inaccessible to technicians whereas the
cable that lasted only 59 years ran overland for a portion of it's
length and was subsequently less reliable.)

Quote/   from :http://www.iscpc.org/cabledb/Australian_Cable_db.htm
Darwin - Banjoewangi1 
In-Service: 1871, Out-of-Service: 1930, Years of Service: 59 yrs
Telegraph cable from Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia to
Banjoewangi, Java, Indonesia. Some of this cable has been recovered by
C&W.
Maintenance Authority: Cable and Wireless 	
Darwin - Banjoewangi 2 	In-Service: 1880, Out-of-Service: 1950, Years of
Service: 70 yrs
Telegraph cable from Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia to
Banjoewangi, Java, Indonesia. Some of this cable has been recovered by
C&W.
Maintenance Authority: Cable and Wireless 	
/Quote

Picture of Cable lengths used in the UK to New Zealand Telegraph line.
http://www.atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/CandW/EExt/BritishIndianCables1.j
pg

---------------------------------
In Nauru, the telephone systems had been installed by (AU) Telecom in
the eighties.
By the 2000's almost all the pits were flooded and filled with mud.
All the connections suffered from earth leakage.
TCP-IP via dial-up connection to a local modem <1850 metres distant was
maxed out at 300 bps.

In Darwin, where every wet season, all Telecom pits are flooded every
time it rains, a solution was found. Linesman extraordinaire, "Spud"
Murphy inverted coke drink bottles over the connections in the pits and
adding some moisture absorbing crystals, filled the necks with wax.
So that even with the pits flooded, and using copper that had been laid
mainly during world war two, in 1988 we were getting 19.2 kbps between
Coconut Grove and Stokes Hill Power Station [11 km - with proprietary
line drivers over two pairs.]

Essentially, with planning, waterproofing and ongoing maintenance, there
is essentially no difference in the operation or longevity of copper and
fibre.

Brisbane was unprepared. 

Then again, the same could be said of any city with any act of God. 
I wonder how long our wireless NBN would last in the event of Solar
flares caused by Betelgeuse going super Nova...???

Quote/
The infamous red super-giant star in Orion's nebula - Betelgeuse - is
predicted to go gangbusters and the impending super-nova may reach Earth
before 2012, and when it does, all of our wildest Star Wars dreams will
come true.
...
Some experts have speculated Betelgeuse's explosion may cause a neutron
star or result in the formation of a black hole approximately 1300 light
years from Earth, but Dr Carter says it could go either way.

"There's a reasonably even chance of a neutron star or a black hole", he
says.
/Quote
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tatooines-twin-suns-coming-to
-a-planet-near-you-just-as-soon-as-betelgeuse-explodes/story-fn5fsgyc-12
25991009247


Or for those that understand Solar Flares and it's effects on our radio
spectrum....
http://137.229.36.30/cgi-bin/magnetometer/magchain.cgi

Or http://www.solarcycle24.com/flares.htm


---------------------------
In Summary, there is no choice.
The network (even a wireless one) requires terrestrial backhaul of some
type. As data packets grow, it makes sense for the backhaul to migrate
to fibre.

Tom