sat3 ?

[h0ll0w]

Could someone tell me what other submarine cables besides Sat3 run from Portugal to South Africa ?

The Reason I ask this is that I had a conversation today with the Captain of a De Beers Diamond mining ship who operated off the Namibian coast. He retired on his time, and now got another job : He said he was leaving for Portugal this week as the captain of a ship which is to pull out an underwater cable running from Portugal to South Africa...

Now this is a oldish man, 60+, and he knows squat about internet or that I know about a submarine internet cable to Portugal. I know for a fact he is still in his right mind and a seasoned seaman, and I asked the same question like 10 times : remove the cable ?

I do not, for one second, believe this could be the Sat3 cable.

 

[Haggle]

It might be the old SAT-2 cable, which has been acting as a backup for the SAT-3 cable.

 

[Roman4604]

My guess would be SAT1, been decommisioned for quite a while ... SAT2 still operational, but only for overflow/redundancy ??? ... could be either, they both went/go to Portugal/Madeira.

BTW think I've found the satellite Telkom use for their international redundancy

 

[h0ll0w]

ahaa, so Sat1&2 are still on the ocean bed ? That explains it.

Couldn't they just remove it as they were installing the new Sat3 ?

 

[krycor]

hrm i wonder if we can buy it and run it into my house

 

[antowan]

Why pull it up? He might have been refering to repairs?

 

[Maskie]

Why pull it up? He might have been refering to repairs?

Because SAT1 was laid before fibre days so have a lot of copper in it and is worth a whole lot of money -- do not know about the SAT2 cable -- that might be fibre. SAT3 is defnitely fibre.

 

[h0ll0w]

I Agree with you Maskie, all that copper has to be worth a small fortune

Anyway he maintained that they will indeed be pulling the cable out.

 

[stoke]

LOL - Now that the copper in SAT1 is public knowledge, methinks there's not going to be any SAT1 left in about 4 days time.

 

[Karnaugh]

SAT-1? Are you just making crap up?

 

[Roman4604]

http://www.atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/Ascension/ ... halfway down the page.

 

[Maskie]

SAT-1? Are you just making crap up?

Whether it is called SAT1 I am not sure -- but there was undersea cables long before SAT3 from Melkbosstrand to Portugal --- still remember when it was laid around 1970 .. might even be a bit earlier ... I stayed right next to the tower in Melkbosstrand when it was build. Yes I was a very young kid at that time

 

[Roman4604]

hrm i wonder if we can buy it and run it into my house

SAT1 had 360 voice channels, assuming you could get 2400 bps out of each that would be a grand total of 820 Kbps ... maintance costs would be a bit of a b1tch tho.

 

[doobiwan]

But If you use DSL technology you could convert those 360 voice channels to 512k ADSL Channels. Telkom could start charging for FishDSL512, low latency direct to portugal, we'd just need to install a few thousand boosters and repeaters! []

. . and let me just point out to those who may have missed the subtlety . . . I am kidding.

 

[Karnaugh]

ahh my bad. It is listed on ISCPC

SAT-1; Out-of-Service: retired 1993, 24 years of Service
Melkbosstrand, South Africa - Ascension Island - Sal, Cape Vert Island - St. Cruz, Tenerife Island, Sesimbra, Portugal - 10,787 Km at 360 x 3kHz channels
Maintenance Authorities: Telkom SA, PT Comunicações, Telefonica

 

[AntiThesis]

You never know... maybe the SAT3 cable is being pulled up

 

[h0ll0w]

SAT1 had 360 voice channels, assuming you could get 2400 bps out of each that would be a grand total of 820 Kbps ... maintance costs would be a bit of a b1tch tho.

Wow! super High-tech it was in its day then

I wonder who gets the cash from selling the copper ?

*edit : oops! hellkom of course. The new CEO can buy himself a nice and cosy maybach. Heaven forbid they invest it into upgrading their current backbone. :\

 

[cobuss]

BTW think I've found the satellite Telkom use for their international redundancy

LOL nice one!!

 

[krycor]

But If you use DSL technology you could convert those 360 voice channels to 512k ADSL Channels. Telkom could start charging for FishDSL512, low latency direct to portugal, we'd just need to install a few thousand boosters and repeaters! []

. . and let me just point out to those who may have missed the subtlety . . . I am kidding.

OR

we could run normal voice lines each with 56k modems. dunno if dial up is free though like in states. lets see, .. 360x56k = ~ 20.16MB - degrading =~ mebbe a 512k - 8k ? i'll take it though thats alot of modems and .. theres the connection on the other end. uhm but yeah its a pipe dream.. like getting access to a random unused satellite.