Connecting Hawaii to New Zealand, the Moana cable system will greatly improve speed and redundancy in transpacific data exchange. The longest section will be 8,000 kilometers long with a second 1,700 kilometer branch connecting Somoa to the Cook Islands.
All told, the cable will weigh roughly 15 tons, with much of it buried beneath the ocean floor. Transatlantic cables are typically 6,000 kilometers and are able to achieve data rates of 100 Gigabits-per-second. Despite being a third longer, by leveraging newer technology the cable being used should prove to be twice as fast. Submarine communications are routed through complex networks which allow for new cables to increase data rates and decrease latency for traffic as a whole by reducing congestion.
The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1866 and the technology proved to be immediately important. It allowed for much better communication between shipping fleets and the British created a global network to coordinate trade between its colonies. The introduction of amplified repeaters a century later led to much higher transmission rates allowing for intercontinental telephone connections to be made reliably. Fiber optic technology was first employed in the 1980s with early projects requiring large consortia to fund.
Improving knowledge and the growing economic significance of the Internet has led to a proliferation of submarine cable projects. Antartica is currently the only continent without such a connection due to the challenges posed by extreme temperatures and shifting ice flows. North Atlantic communication links were long prioritized due to the relatively short path and the economic dominance of the countries involved but this has been changing in recent decades. Alcatel Submarine Networks manufactured the cable for the first amplified transpacific link in the early 90s and since then connections to places like India, Africa and the Pacific Rim have increased leading to faster and more reliable global communication. Continued research and investment in expanding our communication infrastructure will ensure that the economic and social advances facilitated by the internet will continue to grow in the future.
Edited by
Kyle Piscioniere
