This episode was produced by UIC communication student Terres Gacek ’15, who dived into questioning the environmental impact of submarine communication cables. Her guests were Paul Gacek (a low voltage electrical engineer) and Alyssa Fessett (Florida Aquarium).
This podcast is a class exercise and it does not represent the views and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago or any of its departments.
Produced: Fall 2015.
Transcript
[MUSIC: InfoNation theme music and intro] Welcome to InfoNation, University of Illinois at Chicago’s very own podcast created by students, for the students. At InfoNation we discover how media, information, and communication are created, governed and used. Produced by upper-level communication students in the Department of Communication, InfoNation brings academic research to help make sense of our increasingly mediated society. We go to the library so that you won’t have to.
[TERRES GACEK] What comes to mind, when you hear the world internet?
[ANONYMOUS 1] An easily accessible way to gather information.
[ANONYMOUS 2] All the opportunities for communication.
[ANONYMOUS 3] Openness
[ANONYMOUS 4] The ability of find any information that I need.
[TG] Hello and welcome listeners to infonation! My name is Terres Gacek and I am a senior communication’s major and earth and environmental science minor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I will be your host for today’s program. Today we will be exploring the physical layer of the internet. Often times the image of the physical internet components is lost in our minds. Typically we do not think about the internet as this tangible thing, as you heard from student’s responding in the beginning of this podcast. We often do not see all the hardware, wires, and cables that work together to bring us our internet connection.
Today we will be focusing on the components of the internet and one component in particular, that most people may not be aware of. In the depths of the ocean, lies miles of thick underwater cables that connect whole countries with the internet. These cables are commonly referred to as submarine telecommunication cables.
We have the pleasure of having two guests today. First we will drive in by exploring how the internet works and infrastructure that allows us all to log on the internet. Then we will discuss the environmental impacts from the submarine internet cables.
My first guest is Paul Gacek, who is a low voltage electrical engineer.
[TG] If you can just give, the listeners a little bit of background as to your cable industry ties.
[PAUL GACEK] Ok, I started in the industry about 25 years ago with Illinois Bell, which turned into Amertect. And then I started my own business and now I am currently working for another company as their electrical engineer for per-sales support. My interest in fiber was in the structure of it, back 25 year ago. When fiber was just being put in and installed. So I can give you a little bit of insight into how it has evolved over time.
[TG] Ok so you have quite a bit of experience. So can you describe what the internet cables are made of? The submarine ones?
[PG] Yes, all the fibers are single mode fibers. If you don’t want what single mood fiber is? There are two types of fibers: one is single mood and the other is multi mood fiber. Multi-mood fiber is generally used in buildings and infrastructure of businesses, schools, hospitals, hotels anything within a building. Then you have single mood fiber made for long haul transmissions. Single mood fiber is generally made between 8 and 9 microns. Multi-mood fiber is just about 50 to 62 and ½ microns. Single mood fiber, as far as using it for outside applications underwater, a lot of it is proprietary to manufacturing. But the simple make up a fiber would be a fiber in a tube. So picture a straw, but much much smaller, about an eighth of an inch in diameter. Packed with about 15 or 20 fibers that fiber that is the size of your hair. And within this tube, it’s called a buffer tube all these fibers exists. Which are basically colored coded by just a thin layer of dye, when they manufacture the fiber. And within this tube is some kind of water blocking material, whether it is dry water blocking material or a gel. Sometimes they will put yarn as a water blocking material to absorb. It’s called water blocking yarn or tape. Then they will have some kind of polythene or XLPE type jacketing. Out on the outside of that you will have some kind of straight member. They generally use some kind of kelar or some kind of high strain yarn. And once again since it’s outdoor, they use some kind of water blocking material within the yarn. So if water does penetrate at that point the yarn will absorb it. Next to that you will have some kind of colligated or aluminum milar shielding, light shielding on that. Another layer of PVC, some kind of polythene, depending on the manufacturing. Then within the PVC, they will put in some kind of straight member. Generally a stainless steel or some kind of a metal. And then around that, they will put another layer, some kind of armor cladding. Made of possibly small, an eighth of an inch thick wire all around it, wrapped around it for giving it strength and durability. Extruded aluminum polyethylene over that to seal everything off. People make it to give it strength and longevity. A lot of it is top secret manufacture processing, especially for the government. They do not want you to know what it is made of. There are privately owned cables too and everyone wants to beat everyone to the dollar.
[TG] So they are a lot of components that make up these really heavy thick cables. So as I was doing research I have learned that these cables are basically are the infrastructures of the internet. Is that true? Are these cables that essential to the internet?
[PG] Yes, very much so. It ties us to the outside world and outside world to us, brings business together. Business from the other side of the world can set up and work just like they would be sitting next to you.
[TG] So you have these cables in the ocean, where do they lead to from there? Lets’ say we have a cable that goes to Africa to the United State, how are we connected to that cables?
[PG] Well it depends on the vendor. Who owns that cable and who supports it? Someone puts the investment out to burry this cable. There are charging you like a toll would, to use that cable. You will pay for the bandwidth or the amount of bandwidth you chose to cross the ocean with your data. Once it gets from our house to somewhere else and from here to New York and from New York to England, people are being charged for that.
[TG] So I live in Chicago and I am logging onto the internet. How is my internet being connected from my house ultimately to the undersea cables?
[PG] Well you are going to go from your house through your modem, through your carrier which would be Comcast. And Comcast would use the infrastructure of the highway within the network that would go from point A to point B. Let’s say we go from our house through Comcast. They have a place in let’s say Naperville, and that’s where our server sits for us. And through Naperville, they may have ties to take that transmission to New York, to their next hub. And then from to New York to overseas, you’re going to get on that pipe line overseas. Someone untimely owns the rights to those and that may be Comcast paying a slight fee to somebody to use their network across from there.
[TG] Alright. So form my research, I have realized that these are something people do not really talk about. Another part I’d like to talk about is the environmental impact of these cables. I have done a lot of research and have found out that these cables emit electromagnetic fields. Have you heard anything in relation of sharks or any other marine life being effect by these electromagnetic fields?
[PG] Back in the old days it was a huge problem. In the old days, you had copper. So you were sending an actual electrical signal across the ocean. No a days we are sending light. Cable is self, when it transmits light it is non-conductive. Back in the old days with the copper, it had electromagnetic fields around it from the transmission that would draw the sharks. No a days you do not have that, but they do send pluses of electricity down the cables periodically to locate them because if we have a cable that is made of mostly in-earth material we cannot find it. So what they can do is send a signal down the cable so they can find it. Basically a tracer, I should say and they used to leave them on. Now a days they only turn them on when they need to. But now a days, I think with the fiber we have environmentally… we are much better off. There is no electromagnetic field around these things. It is basically light being transmitted.
[TG] I didn’t know it was light. I always thought it was something more than light. The last thing I would like to talk about it is, when I was trying to do research for this project one thing I ran into and was a hug problem for me was that nobody wanted to talk about what these cables were made of and they did not want to talk about the environmental impacts. I did a lot of reaching out to other people and they did not want to give me a clear cut answers. In fact I got a lot of “this information is classified” and I am very curious as to why this information is so important.
[PG] Once again a lot of these cables are made; most of them are made privately. A lot of them are governmental cables and we will never know what they are made of. They are ten steps above us. Privately it is competition. Your cable doesn’t fail and someone else is having a hard time, no one wants to give out exactly how that cable is made. They are only going to give an idea of how it is made. The only people that are going to know are the designers and the people that build it.
[TG] Do you think they do that for security reasons?
[PG] Well government security reasons and privately for competitions reasons. Everyone wants to make a better cables than everyone else. They don’t want to give their trade secrets on making cable.
[TG] Now recently I saw a story about the Russians being near the Submarine cables. Do you think that expands from the competition market and goes into people spying on other governments, a matter of national security?
[PG] Well yeah. That has been going on for as long as those cables have been in the sea. I mean we did it to the Russians, why wouldn’t they do it to us?
[TG] Once again I did not think these cables were so highly guarded. But I thank you for our conversation and thank you for being on our podcast today.
[PG] Thank you
[TG] My second guest for today is marine biologist Alyssa Fessett. She studied biology and marine biology at the University of Tampa in Florida. She currently works for the Florida Aquarium as an Assistant biologist.
[TG] Thank you, for being here today. Can you tell me about a little bit more about the environmental effects of these submarine cables and the environmental effect on marine life on the submarine cables?
[ALYSSA FESSETT] So far as the environmental effects that cables play on animals and what not. What I could find out about is, that there is the potential for these cables to be emitting EMF’s, or electromagnetic fields. And it’s contracting what these sharks, string rays and rays have sensitive set of organs called ampulla of Lorenzini. What these are used for it to detect all these magnetic fields. So if these cables are emitting electromagnetic fields and sharks can detect them, it can possibility either deter them from going towards them or attract them because these mechanism were built in sharks to be able to find pray that might be sick or dying and easy targets to be eaten. So that’s one of the things that is there with the cables to effect sharks. Another thing that these cables could potentially be doing, is actually giving a place for organisms to grow on. So things such as anemones, need a hard sub straight to develop on. When they are first born, they are little planula. Which are upside down jelly fish that float around looking for some place to settle? And once they find a hard sub straight they can attach and become polyps and grow into the anemones that we know what they look like and everything like that. But in these areas where there is a lot of silt they cannot. So when a cable is down, then they can just go ahead and attach and grow into big anemones. So that’s kind of a positive thing that they can have.
[TG] Do they have any effects from the electricity?
[AF] That has not been said anywhere, so I don’t know. There could be because of the components of the cables. But I do not know if it’s there or not because there is no data on it.
The last thing I can think of that could be a problem, is when these cables are being put down or taken up its causing siltation. So just like how dredging or trawling can kick up sand and what not. When the sand falls back down and settles, it could be settling on top of planets or even those small organisms like anemones that are filter feeders. And causing them either to: one not to get sun light, not create their own food or getting into their gills or feeding mechanisms. And it would be like breathing in sand or dust. How a human would have issues or it would be an irritant. You figure these plants would have the same issue but underwater.
[TG] Yeah these cables are at very vast depths, I like 2000km is the average depth. I just can’t imagine all of that settling down, that must take a long time to settle down.
[AF] Yeah, and you figure, I don’t know how they up it down. But if it kicks it up then it’s got to come down still.
[TG] Yeah, that’s true. Another thing I was reading was that the cables might affect their navigation system. When they are migrating or just traveling.
[AF] That would go back to the EMF and fish or turtles or any else that uses electromagnetic fields to figure out where they are going. So if you have some other electromagnetic field being put out into the environment that could be confusing to them. Or how I said early with the attraction or deterrent, if an animal normally has this pathway and they are trying to get to point A to point B and now there is this block that they don’t want to go through. They have to figure out another way to get around it or over it and just re-navigate a pathway that has been there for thousands of years that that species has been figuring out how to get from point A to point B.
Fish can also be affected by it to; it’s more common with the chondrichthyes species because they are more sensitive to EMF’s. But I mean the osteichthyes, which are boney fish; they have some modified respecters to magnetic field and what not. So they are the potential for them to be affected as well.
[TG] One thing I was curious about was in the about shark bites by Louis. I am amusing these are deep water sharks biting them, does it affect them, when they bite it?
[AF] It could, if there is any substance in there that they shouldn’t be eating. Then once they digest it, it could be a problem. Just like if your dog were to eat something he was not supposed too. Overall the sharks will lose their teeth from getting stuck in there. But they have rotating teeth, so no matter if they lose a tooth, they just have rows and rows coming back replacing it. But again there is the potentially too, that again they think these EMF’s are promoting low frequency type single like a hurt fish and they think it’s a pray. So they go for it and bite it. I haven’t read much about any effect on them, but the potential is there if there are any types of chemicals.
[TG] So another thing I wanted to talk about too was, as mentioned I had a very hard time getting a hold of people and even in the academic world there is not much of a conversation that’s happening around these environmental effects. Do you think there is a reason why or any thoughts on why?
[AF] I think that since they are so important to our communication long distance that if there was any negative effect there would be so many people trying to over ride it showing the positive effect of communication that they are going to shadow down or play down any of the problems. Be like oh no we need this to survive. I also think there has not been a whole lot of research gone into it stating if there are negative effects. A lot of the things that I read are saying, ok there is siltation that is happening from putting them down. They are saying that oh it’s not as hard a dredging; it’s not as bad as trawling. Well even through it is not as bad, there is still something happening that shouldn’t be there. It’s just one more step in the wrong direction but it’s not the worst step. And therefore it is not getting as much attention.
[TG] I was just really surprised that there is supposedly very minimal effect. Like in one of the studies I read about glass sea sponges and they said there was a 0.2% totally lost of total sponges. Like you said they are actually helping them. I was just surprised that that appeared.
[AF] Yeah, it depends on the species. Because like I said if they can put it down and there is siltation they can potentially kill off animals. But once that line is down, you are creating ecological niche that wasn’t there and opportunistic species are going to come in and take over and start growing. So initially you are going to have a loss of biomass but then you are going to have a re-growth that in a way wasn’t potentially there before. So it is kind of good and bad, but it’s not natural. We are doing it.
[TG] Well thank you it was very nice talking to you. I appreciate all your input.
[AF] Not a problem, glad to help.
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