WACS boasts lowest latency connection to Europe

Cool, I am just frustrated with how long it is taking before the end user will eventually see the benefits filter through. I am a bit disappointed to see that Telkom are involved....
 
I'm just amazed that they only run 4 pairs of fiber. One would think that if you are going to the great expense of getting a ship to lay the cables, that they could just add a few extra pairs of fiber while they are about it. That would future proof the cable, at a nominal expense.

Of course, I may be talking out of my hat about the cost of the pairs, not knowing how thick each fiber is, etc, etc. But I would imagine that the cladding and shielding, etc, make up the bulk of the cost of the cable. Putting extra pairs inside that cladding sounds like it should be relatively inexpensive.
 
The cost is not only the fibre pairs, but the amplifiers and repeaters that need to be underwater. Each repeater uses a huge amount of electricity to operate and also requires space in the housing. Also, too many repeaters underwater increase the chance of failures. Ultimately, with 5Tb of bandwidth, more physical fibres are not necessarily needed right now. Also bare in mind that if a single cable had, say, 20 pairs and 50Tb, then any cable cuts or problems would take out 50Tb of internet capacity at once. Imaging trying to repair 20 pairs of fibre out in the middle of the ocean.
 
This is like saying that a really fast car (0-160km/h) will be available sometime soon.
No details on how fast, nor on how much.

The devil is in the details.
 
Gaz{M} said:
The cost is not only the fibre pairs, but the amplifiers and repeaters that need to be underwater. Each repeater uses a huge amount of electricity to operate and also requires space in the housing. Also, too many repeaters underwater increase the chance of failures. Ultimately, with 5Tb of bandwidth, more physical fibres are not necessarily needed right now. Also bare in mind that if a single cable had, say, 20 pairs and 50Tb, then any cable cuts or problems would take out 50Tb of internet capacity at once. Imaging trying to repair 20 pairs of fibre out in the middle of the ocean.
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Right, I hadn't factored in the cost of the repeaters. It makes more sense now. Thanks!
 
Am I the only one wondering what the hell is "40G" technology. Sounds like pure marketing rubbish to me.
 
Like I said months ago: WACS is the one to look out for and might very well be the one to drive bandwidth prices down even more. EASSy is a joke in comparison.
 
kevinswan007 said:
How can they promise faster latency's when our local adsl exchanges are hardly coping with the congestion as it is!??!
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If you read the article you would have noticed the lower latency is in comparison to the existing cables, they even explain why.
 
"It would even provide shorter latencies than on the ageing SAT-2 cable" of course the latency is better - fibre vs copper? Unless it was typo and should have been SAT-3?
 
DWDM

fluffy54 said:
Am I the only one wondering what the hell is "40G" technology. Sounds like pure marketing rubbish to me.
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40G refers to dense wavelength division multiplexing technology whereby more than one optical wavelength is used inside a singe fibre pair. 40 Gbps is also known as OC-768. So it's actually just doing more with less fiber. No marketing there....same technology used by the likes of telkom.
 
maraisl said:
40G refers to dense wavelength division multiplexing technology whereby more than one optical wavelength is used inside a singe fibre pair. 40 Gbps is also known as OC-768. So it's actually just doing more with less fiber. No marketing there....same technology used by the likes of telkom.
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Thanks for answering. As RoganDawes pointed out, mention was made of the increased capacity provided by "40G" technology in the article.
 
evilsee said:
"It would even provide shorter latencies than on the ageing SAT-2 cable" of course the latency is better - fibre vs copper? Unless it was typo and should have been SAT-3?
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There's definitely no typo. When I asked Kobus Stroeder to confirm his statement about WACS being the lowest latency link to Europe for SA he mentioned the SAT-2 cable specifically. He obviously couldn't comment on how long the cable would still be in service for.

If I recall correctly, SAT-2 is an optical cable and links Melkbosstrand to Europe with landings in Portugal and Spain. Of course there's a whole lot not discussed that could affect the latency on the SAT-2 cable, but its considered the most direct route to Europe currently.
 
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Gordon_R said:
All the West Africa cables follow almost identical routes, so arguing about which will be better seems irrelevant:
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Besides a host of other factors (including WACS' POP in the UK), the argument here is that WACS will provide a dedicated fibre pair between SA and Portugal. That fibre pair won't connect to any other landing site. According to Stroeder, no other cable does that other than SAT-2 which only has landings in Portugal and Spain.
 
the cable is a joint venture between Telkom, Neotel, MTN, Vodacom and Broadband Infraco
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Them all working together could go two ways. This being South Africa, it'll go the wrong way, no doubt. Consortium TO SCREW THE CONSUMER.
 
Great news, but the article and the title seem unrelated? If the title talks about "boasting low latency" - then shouldn't we see at least one sentence in that wall of text, describing at least an estimate of what low latency can be expected? How will the latency compare to SAT3 (145ms from cape town, 165ms from jhb). Hows about telling us WHAT current latency is achievable on SAT-2 ? I've never even seen a SAT-2 latency test
 
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