connectivity outside the US

Sat May 31 23:11:44 UTC 1997

Actually if you read that article (and everyone should..) the hardest
part was the overland routes.  That would indicate that it is much 
easier to lay cable under the ocean...

Brian

On Sat, 31 May 1997, Jesse Caulfield wrote:

> Undersea capacity is expensive for 3 reasons:
>    1) It's under the ocean
>    2) It's under the ocean
>    3) It's under the ocean
> 
> For more information than you ever wanted and a great read check out Neal
> Stephenson's article:
>   http://wwww.wired.com/wired/4.12/motherearth/
> 
> Transoceanic cables are actually designed with massive capacity. They're
> terribly expensive to lay and maintain though, and demand for
> communications has kept good pace with available space - keeping the
> price of transit high.
> 
> You're right about the lack of competition. To undertake laying
> a cable PTT's will join together and divy out capacity, management
> responsibilities, etc., in proportion to their investment. This doesn't
> leave room for small-quantity pricing, as you'd have to aggregate "massive
> quantities" to reach the economies of scale necessary.
> 
> --
> JMC
> 
> On Sat, 31 May 1997, Vadim Antonov wrote:
> > smd at clock.org (Sean M. Doran) wrote:
> > > Examining this a bit more closely, since undersea capacity is
> > > terribly expensive, when there is adequate capacity available
> > > to a large aggregate of sites people want to get to, there will
> > > be an obvious market for access to that capacity.   
> > Actually, i do not understand why undersea capacity is so
> > expensive.  Cable is more expensive, yes; but the paths
> > are much straighter, and there's no need to purchase
> > rights of ways (except for shore-side strips).  There's
> > no need to dig trenches -- you just drop the cable off the
> > boat.
> > I guess the real problem with undersea capacity is more in the
> > fact that it was always considered a low-volume service (which
> > it is, in terms of voice traffic); so there's no many competitive
> > providers, and small-quantity pricing.
> 
> 