Google claims that its new Equiano subsea cable will increase South Africa's internet speed three-fold

[Groggyme]

"increase South Africa's internet speed three-fold"

why does it sound like google drew this statement from the same hat as the stadia "stadia will have negative latency" statement

It does not make sense... increase capacity maybe but speed... ?

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Faster Internet is nice, stable Internet that can deliver 4K streams without buffering is a requirement.

 

[Priapus]

Whats more interesting is the Plus Codes idea, I do like it at first glance actually.

Yeah that's an interesting idea. I'd much prefer that over whatever other system there currently is. I wonder what it will take to get it to work here in SA. Even though we all have our own codes already.

 

[Priapus]

Faster Internet is nice, stable Internet that can deliver 4K streams without buffering is a requirement.

Internet won't get any faster. If you read the article; it says at most we get more resilience than anything.

 

[konfab]

Now divide the length of the Equiano cable by this fibre light speed. What is the delay.

Great circle distance between Cape Town and Portugal is about 8500km (I know the cable is going to be quite a bit longer)

To make the numbers a bit more sane:
Speed of light in the cable is 214137470 m/s.
Dividing that by 1000, to make it meters/millisecond, and by another thousand to make it km/ms is 214.13747.

So doing that, 8500/214.13747 = +-40ms. Round trip gives you a theoretical latency of 80ms.
That cable isn't quite going on a great circle though, so I would guess that it is about 1.5 times the distance., which leaves you with about 120ms. I suspect the rest is network overhead.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Great circle distance between Cape Town and Portugal is about 8500km (I know the cable is going to be quite a bit longer)

To make the numbers a bit more sane:
Speed of light in the cable is 214137470 m/s.
Dividing that by 1000, to make it meters/millisecond, and by another thousand to make it km/ms is 214.13747.

So doing that, 8500/214.13747 = +-40ms. Round trip gives you a theoretical latency of 80ms.
That cable isn't quite going on a great circle though, so I would guess that it is about 1.5 times the distance., which leaves you with about 120ms. I suspect the rest is network overhead.

You need to factor in Refractory Index as well, which drops the speed of light by a bit in fibre optic cable...

And the cable is going to be approximately 12000kms long (based off its assumed route, and existing cable lengths).

Ultimately though, purely theoretical latency just in the cable itself does work out to around 120ms round trip factoring in RI and cable length as well.

 

[konfab]

Internet won't get any faster. If you read the article; it says at most we get more resilience than anything.

It will eventually get faster once the ISPs start taking advantage of it for competition.

 

[ToxicBunny]

It will eventually get faster once the ISPs start taking advantage of it for competition.

Honestly, I am not "international speed" limited by our outbound international connectivity, even on my 50 up/50 down fibre... I'm more internationally limited by the source system limiting traffic, or local connection speed.

 

[konfab]

You need to factor in Refractory Index as well, which drops the speed of light by a bit in fibre optic cable...

And the cable is going to be approximately 12000kms long (based off its assumed route, and existing cable lengths).

Ultimately though, purely theoretical latency just in the cable itself does work out to around 120ms round trip factoring in RI and cable length as well.

I used the speed of light in the cable, not free space.
From this post:

The speed of light is exactly 299 792 458 meters per second in a vacuum.

The speed of light in any material including fibre optic cable is based on its RI or Refractive Index. I think for most fibre cables its.... 1.4. This means that speed of light in a fibre optic cable is 299 792 458 / 1.4 which gives us - 214 137 470 meters per second in a fibre cable.

 

[ToxicBunny]

I used the speed of light in the cable, not free space.
From this post:

Ahhh fair play, I missed that ...

 

[Geoff.D]

Will these cables reduce latency?

Latency is determined by distance. So. If the routing distance is shorter, maybe a small drop in latency.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Internet won't get any faster. If you read the article; it says at most we get more resilience than anything.

Heading reads:

Google claims that its new Equiano subsea cable will increase South Africa's internet speed three-fold​

Don't need much faster, but stable enough, for rock solid streaming is missing.

Current uncapped internet available to me, would have been awesome back when I had a 500GB hard drive in an old box torrenting 24/7.

I have moved on to streaming for my entertainment, which requires a good stable internet connection.

 

[DA-LION-619]

Heading reads:

Google claims that its new Equiano subsea cable will increase South Africa's internet speed three-fold​

Don't need much faster, but stable enough, for rock solid streaming is missing.

Current uncapped internet available to me, would have been awesome back when I had a 500GB hard drive in an old box torrenting 24/7.

I have moved on to streaming for my entertainment, which requires a good stable internet connection.

What’s unstable about your current connection that you have issues streaming?

 

[ToxicBunny]

Heading reads:

Google claims that its new Equiano subsea cable will increase South Africa's internet speed three-fold​

Don't need much faster, but stable enough, for rock solid streaming is missing.

Current uncapped internet available to me, would have been awesome back when I had a 500GB hard drive in an old box torrenting 24/7.

I have moved on to streaming for my entertainment, which requires a good stable internet connection.

Yes that is what the headline states, because that is what Google claimed...

But anyone who actually knows the state of the interwebs in this country is more than slightly skeptical of the claim...

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

What’s unstable about your current connection that you have issues streaming?

In the evenings, I go from a rock steadily 80Mbps to 6-20 Mbps, and streaming goes to hell in a hand basket.

Speed fluctuations kill streaming.

Edit:

Mine goes up and down like a YoYo.

 

[ToxicBunny]

In the evenings, I go from a rock steadily 80Mbps to 6-20 Mbps, and streaming goes to hell in a hand basket.

Speed fluctuations kill streaming.

Edit:

Mine goes up and down like a YoYo.

Depending on who your ISP is, and what you're streaming that could be a local congestion issue more than an international connectivity issue.

Netflix for example does have some local content distribution equipment ( I think Cool Ideas has one on their network as an example)

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Depending on who your ISP is, and what you're streaming that could be a local congestion issue more than an international connectivity issue.

Netflix for example does have some local content distribution equipment ( I think Cool Ideas has one on their network as an example)

Supersonic Fixed-LTE-A, ... , no copper, no fiber. Options are LTE from Telkom, Supersonic or Rain ... , not much of a choice.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Supersonic Fixed-LTE-A, ... , no copper, no fiber. Options are LTE from Telkom, Supersonic or Rain ... , not much of a choice.

Ahhh LTE... then that is almost definitely spectrum congestion you're experiencing....

New international cables won't make your experience any different unfortunately.

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

Google claims new cable will triple South Africa's Internet speeds

No...it simply will not do that. It is not how that works.


/

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Ahhh LTE... then that is almost definitely spectrum congestion you're experiencing....

New international cables won't make your experience any different unfortunately.

My thought as well, but that is life ...