News NATO plans to build satellite links as backups to undersea cables

[6pack]

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/networ...ge-incidents-shine-spotlight-on-project-heist

The alliance wants to build a system that seamlessly switches between undersea cables and satellites in case of disruption.
Because of the increasing number of undersea cable disruptions happening in the past couple of years, NATO is building on a system that will locate damage to undersea cables with an accuracy of one meter and find more routes that data can take if a disruption does occur in a particular line. This project will be called HEIST, says the IEEE in a report, which stands for Hybrid Space-Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications.

Satellites are the primary backups to undersea cables, but their bandwidth is far behind physical connections. For example, Google’s latest fiber-optic lines can hit 340 terabits per second. In contrast, the frequency used by most satellites—12 to 18GHz—can only handle about 5 gigabits per second or about 0.0015% of the maximum throughput of Google’s fiber connection.

Work is underway to upgrade satellites from radio transmissions to lasers, increasing the speed by about 40 times to 200 Gbps. Starlink already uses this technology to communicate between its satellites, while Amazon is also developing it for its own Project Kuiper. However, it still faces challenges, like poor visibility and targeting precision between the satellite and ground station.
Because this is a major NATO project, the alliance plans to open-source part of the process. Making it public would allow anyone interested to find holes and make many iterations.

Interesting. I wonder why they don't dig a trench and put the cables in it. Satellite has very low bandwidth compared to cable. I doubt they can divert the entire broken cable capacity through satellite immediately.

 

[ronnie_gogs]

Since its NATO wouldn't the traffic be military and infrastructure related. It would serve a good backup to undersea cables in case of disruption due to force majeure events or deliberate sabotage during war.

 

[6pack]

They already have military satellites for military stuff. This is for banking transactions etc. In the source, they have mentioned a few trillions of transactions taking place through these cables. So no cable = loss. hence they are going this route. I think they are afraid of Russia and instead of sanctioning Russia or Chinese shipping companies, they are taking this pacifist approach. Europe has become too weak.

 

[solo_wing]

But aren't there missiles to knock down satellites too.

Plus satellites too are equally prone to cyberattacks.

 

[6pack]

Yes but using missiles mean major escalation. If Russia uses missiles to shoot down military satellites, NATA won't sit still. USA will be the first to launch missiles at Russian military satellites too. Everyone knows whose satellites are military purpose or dual purpose and will take action. Plus knocking down satellites is another huge problem. One burst satellite debris can cause another few more satellites to lose orbits or countries will have to forcibly move satellite orbits and more. The small specks of metal can make holes in satellites of any country and stay in orbit for years. In orbit the speeds are close to thousands of km/hr. Only a mad man will explode a satellite in space.

 

[TEUser2K1]

Countries with advanced weapon systems already are ready for space war.
This will add more beeps to their monitors.

 

[solo_wing]

Yes but using missiles mean major escalation. If Russia uses missiles to shoot down military satellites, NATA won't sit still. USA will be the first to launch missiles at Russian military satellites too. Everyone knows whose satellites are military purpose or dual purpose and will take action. Plus knocking down satellites is another huge problem. One burst satellite debris can cause another few more satellites to lose orbits or countries will have to forcibly move satellite orbits and more. The small specks of metal can make holes in satellites of any country and stay in orbit for years. In orbit the speeds are close to thousands of km/hr. Only a mad man will explode a satellite in space.

Russia had already threatened Elon Musk starlink when he said he will providing sat communication to Ukrainian military.

I think later Elon Musk toned down the usage...if I am correct.

During war if a country is loosing they will do everything in their arsenal.

Beside North Korea had hacked Sony Pictures when the movie on Kim Jung II ( whatever his name is ) giving them massive loss.
USA went and cut North korea's undersea internet cable.

North Korea was furious but could not do much .

With wars you never know when an enemy takes drastic steps.

 

[6pack]

Russia had already threatened Elon Musk starlink when he said he will providing sat communication to Ukrainian military.

I think later Elon Musk toned down the usage...if I am correct.

During war if a country is loosing they will do everything in their arsenal.

Beside North Korea had hacked Sony Pictures when the movie on Kim Jung II ( whatever his name is ) giving them massive loss.
USA went and cut North korea's undersea internet cable.

North Korea was furious but could not do much .

With wars you never know when an enemy takes drastic steps.

threatening and making it happen are two different things. If Russia shoots down one satellite, they will make enemies of not 1 or two countries. They will make enemies of a dozen countries with better arms than them. Its a no win situation for Russia. Don't know about ww3 starting, but these two countries have more enemies than friends.

 

[solo_wing]

threatening and making it happen are two different things. If Russia shoots down one satellite, they will make enemies of not 1 or two countries. They will make enemies of a dozen countries with better arms than them. Its a no win situation for Russia. Don't know about ww3 starting, but these two countries have more enemies than friends.

I know.
It is easier said than done but desperate situation call for desperate measures.

If a regime knows they are going down might as well take their enemy with them.

How many times during Cold war did the world really come close to go nuclear ?.

Quite a few times.
Pakistan during Kargil wanted to go nuke. USA stepped in .

Was it empty threat maybe but had India gone inside this threat would have become a reality .

 

[burntwingzZz]

this starlink/satellite internet shit will unsettle the unsettled countries/regions more. recently a starlink was found in manipur