Former transatlantic telephone cable
TAT-14
|
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|
Owners:
[1]
[2]
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Landing points
|
Total length
| 15,428 km (9,587 mi)
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Topology
| Self-healing ring
|
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Design capacity
| 9.38
Tbit
/s
|
---|
Currently lit capacity
| 3.15 Tbit/s
|
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Technology
| Fiber optics with
EDFA
repeaters
|
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Date of first use
| 21 March 2001
(
2001-03-21
)
|
---|
Decommissioning date
| 15 December 2020
(
2020-12-15
)
|
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TAT-14
was the 14th consortium
transatlantic telecommunications cable
system. In operation from 2001 to 2020,
[3]
it used
wavelength division multiplexing
. The cable system was built from multiple pairs of fibres?one fibre in each pair was used for data carried in one direction and the other in the opposite direction. Although optical fibre can be used in both directions simultaneously, for reliability it is better not to require splitting equipment at the end of the individual fibre to separate transmit and receive signals?hence a fibre pair is used. TAT-14 used four pairs of fibres?two pairs as active and two as backup. Each fibre in each pair carried 16 wavelengths in one direction, and each wavelength carried up to an
STM-256
(38,486,016 kbit/s as payload).
[4]
The fibres were bundled into submarine cables connecting the United States and the European Union (United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark) in a
ring topology
.
[5]
By the time this cable went into operation, the expected
long boom
(term coined by
Wired
magazine
) was already ending in the
dot-com
death
. The overinvestment in transcontinental
optical fiber
capacity led to a financial crisis in private cable operators like
Global Crossing
.
In the
diplomatic cables leak
, it is revealed that the landing point in
Katwijk, the Netherlands
is included in a
US Government
list of
critical infrastructure
susceptible to
terrorist attack
.
[6]
Use of the cable was ceased on December 15, 2020, shortly after the
Havfrue
cable, whose main trunk also lands at Blaabjerg, was lit in November 2020.
[7]
In 2021 the permanent dismantling of the system was begun.
[8]
Cable failure
[
edit
]
In November 2003, TAT-14 suffered two breaks within weeks of each other, first on the southern link between the US and UK, then on the link between France and the Netherlands which had been providing redundant service to the UK via the northern link through Denmark, resulting in disruption to Internet services in the United Kingdom.
[9]
[10]
On May 19, 2014, preliminary reports from hosting provider
Digital Ocean
suggested that TAT-14 was the cause for the disrupted services between the EU and the US.
[11]
Decommissioning of the TAT-14
[
edit
]
Subsea Environmental Services has removed and recycle the cable shore-ends in the U.S., U.K., France, Denmark and The Netherlands as well as the deep-water segments in the North Atlantic.
[
citation needed
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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TAT series
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Private non-TAT
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Other
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