Comment by octoberfranklin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by octoberfranklin | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

octoberfranklin

> This is about the same cost as aerial construction,

Not even close. 12-count ADSS cable costs $3,000 per km, one tenth of your low-end. And for three times that price you can get 144-count which isn't even remotely an option for subsea cables.

I used to buy from FS.com, but they've stopped shipping large spools due to the COVID shipping disaster situation, and took the pricing down off their website. Here's another company (never dealt with them) charging $1,400 per km:

https://multicomstore.com/ofs-f12smadss350f-fiber-optic-cabl...

Source: I lease aerial dark fiber, included some that was constructed at my request.

> Subsea cable system costs are about 30k$ to 50k$ per kilometer.

Including repeaters/amplifiers and power delivery? Yeah right. Link?

> you can and do have subsea cables with 216 or other high count strand numbers

Show me a 216-count subsea cable long enough to need repeaters/amplifiers.

This is very amusing :)

It's a typical rookie mistake to confuse the cable costs with construction costs.

> And for three times that price you can get 144-count which isn't even remotely an option for subsea cables.

I know for a fact you can get 192 count subsea cable.

>> Subsea cable system costs are about 30k$ to 50k$ per kilometer.

> Including repeaters/amplifiers and power delivery?

Yes.

> Link?

  http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=subsea+cable+system+cost+per+km

> Show me a 216-count subsea cable long enough to need repeaters/amplifiers.

I know reading is hard, but repeat after me: "The reason you use 12 strands or less in long haul systems is that it is cheaper to use fewer strands and higher bandwidth rates per strand than to build high count subsea cable systems."

If you want high count subsea cable segments with amps, but which does not use in-line amps, take a look at https://crosslakefibre.ca/

To spell it out for you, subsea cables which are only a few hundred kilometers long do not require in-line amps, only head end amps.

Ah yes, the old "proof by emphatic assertion".

> http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=subsea+cable+system+cost+per+k...

Nice source there.

I don’t understand what your problem is? You can read, can’t you?

Google even pops up a box with the relevant information immediately. Here, let me help you if that’s too hard:

“The cost of completing the nascent fiber-optic network connecting the capital cities of Sub-Saharan Africa and the main submarine cables is modest at $316 million, based on a cost of around $27,000 per kilometer.”

And that’s just the top result. You can look up the per km cost of almost any cable system trivially.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com