The TG staff is having fun with OpenAI’s new ChatGPT—a synthetic intelligence assistant educated to reply questions and supply info on a variety of subjects—and our Slack channels present it.
As standard, we will not assist speaking about telecom, so our analysts have made a sport of testing ChatGPT’s submarine cable information.
How nicely has it fared?
Listed below are a number of questions from TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable FAQs. We’ll offer you AI’s reply, adopted by our personal, so that you may be the choose.
What number of submarine cables are there?
ChatGPT: There are a lot of submarine cables which have been laid world wide to supply telecommunication hyperlinks between nations and continents. Based on a 2020 report by Telegeography, a market analysis agency that makes a speciality of telecommunications, there are at the moment over 500 submarine cables in service world wide, with a complete size of roughly 1.2 million kilometers.
TeleGeography: As of early 2023, we observe 552 lively and deliberate submarine cables. The full variety of lively cables is consistently altering as new cables enter service and older cables are decommissioned.
What number of kilometers of cable are there?
ChatGPT: It’s troublesome to provide an actual quantity for the whole size of submarine cables put in world wide, as new cables are being put in on a regular basis and a few older cables are decommissioned. Nevertheless, it’s estimated that there are at the moment round 1.2 million kilometers (750,000 miles) of submarine cables in operation worldwide.
TeleGeography: As of early 2023, we imagine there are practically 1.4 million kilometers of submarine cables in service globally.
Some cables are fairly brief, just like the 131 kilometer CeltixConnect cable between Eire the UK. In distinction, others are extremely lengthy, such because the 20,000 kilometer Asia America Gateway cable.
The place are these cables?
ChatGPT: Submarine cables are situated all around the world, with some cables connecting continents and others connecting smaller land lots or islands. There are submarine cables that span the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, in addition to many smaller our bodies of water. On the whole, submarine cables are concentrated in areas with excessive ranges of worldwide telecommunications visitors, reminiscent of Europe, Asia, and North America.
TeleGeography: One of the simplest ways to reply that is to go to TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map.
We’re continuously updating this free useful resource for instance the world’s lively and deliberate cables. As you will notice on the map, practically all nations which have a shoreline are related to a submarine cable.
I’ve heard that sharks are identified for biting cables. Is that true?
ChatGPT: There have been a number of studies of sharks biting underwater cables, however it isn’t a typical prevalence. Sharks have sturdy tooth and jaws that may trigger injury to arduous objects, however they don’t seem to be usually interested in cables or different man-made objects. Sharks usually tend to chunk issues that they understand as prey, reminiscent of fish or seals. It’s potential {that a} shark may by accident chunk a cable whereas attempting to catch prey that’s close to the cable, however this might not be a deliberate act on the a part of the shark.
TeleGeography: That is in all probability one of many largest myths that we see cited within the press. Whereas it’s true that previously sharks have bitten a number of cables, they don’t seem to be a serious risk.
Based on knowledge from the Worldwide Submarine Cable Safety Committee fish bites (a class that features sharks) accounted for zero cable faults between 2007 and 2014. The vast majority of injury to submarine cables comes from human exercise, primarily fishing and anchoring, not sharks.
There you may have it! Even AI is doing the work to defend sharks in opposition to cable injury misinformation.
