Editors Note: File under Feedback: Architecture’s New Territories, an InfraNet Lab seminar at Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design / University of Toronto. Guest post and images are by Ali Fard.

———–

With an estimated 1,733,993,741 users and a global growth rate of 380% since 2000 , it is easy to think of the internet as a free-flowing cloud of information accessible by all. However, unlike popular belief, our connection to the internet is not mediated by an uber high-tech network of satellites (or any of the other usual suspects). In fact, satellite links account for only 1% of all internet connections. Automatically, and incorrectly, thought of as a complex metaphysical network of information, the Internet consists of a highly physical network of lines and nodes; a simple system with inherent complexities.

Simply put, it is a network of submarine communication cables laid across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and other water bodies that connect us to information databases in other continents. Although the technology has changed significantly, the network itself does not differ greatly from the network of submarine telegraph lines which existed as early as 1901. Much like long umbilical cords, these cables are the not-so-visible proof of our dependence on concentrated sources of information. These very real and physical “communication highways” establish links between information super hubs, while controlling internet’s dissemination of information. These lines, coupled with the terrestrial network of land lines and data centers, are the medium of the internet.

[The existing global network of submarine communication cables.]

The lines and nodes of the internet, much like any other physical infrastructure, are prone to an array of politico-economic issues. Closely related to the politico-economic reading of the hierarchical structure of the world, much of this understanding of internet has to do with its very physical backbone. Areas with the least number of users get the best connections and others, like most of Africa, get nothing. We can clearly make out the users from producers. The redundancies of the submarine lines to North America and Europe have caused internet prices to plummet, which in turn has encouraged not only higher usage of internet but an active participation in the information world. Meanwhile, you can count the number of lines feeding Africa on one hand. As a result, prices are so high that even the lines that are already in place become meaningless, because of lack of use.

[Submarine cable system, from left to right: Cable + Repeaters + Landing Points + Termination Stations.]

[Submarine communication cable: 1. Polyethylene cover; 2. & 4. Stranded steel armor wires; 3. & 5. Tar-soaked nylon yarn; 6. Polycarbonate insulator; 7. Copper sheath; 8. Protective core; 9. Optical fibers.]

[Cable-laying ship.]

[A submarine cable arriving on land in Bangladesh, April 10, 2009. REUTERS/Gina Din Corporate Communications/Japheth Kagondu/Handout.]

The Internet can be read as a dynamic network, but a network which is far from equally distributed. This unequal distribution is not because of lack of potential, but lack of means. It is clear that in today’s information heavy economy, to compete means to be connected. So, areas with little or no internet connection, which are already among the most economically unstable, get left behind and cannot compete. It is clear that the current state of the network privileges the most developed countries. This outcome is merely due to economic factors and not necessarily based on efficiencies and strengths of the network. So, how can this unequally distributed network be rewired to be able to function efficiently? How is this network affected with regards to the recent crisis in the economic structure of the world? How can a more logical rewiring of the network help African countries or other poorly connected areas of the world, while improving the system as a whole?

[A current map of the global internet connection.]

[A possible re-wiring scenario in which Africa becomes an internet hub, taking advantage of its geographic location.]

One possible rewiring scenario has to do with the strategic geographic location of Africa. With cheap land, availability of natural resources and proximity to Asia, Europe and South America, Africa can provide fertile grounds for international data center activity. Big Internet companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, whose data center activity is mostly concentrated in North America and Europe, can start investing in the internet infrastructure of African countries by providing better connections, and in return can be allowed to establish data centers in areas with little economic activity. These companies can take on an active role in shaping the information economy of Africa by not only providing internet connections, but also by providing jobs and training. All this cannot be achieved by corporate colonization, but through an active and dedicated participation in the growth of the information economy of the region.

Although great imagination may be required in visualizing such proposition, and a great deal of analysis is required in understanding the ups and downs of such a mammoth initiative, it is in no way farfetched. It is in fact such a proposal that can bring much needed attention to how information is distributed throughout the world and provide grounds for discussion of possible new futures of the network.

Also from the Feedback seminar:
Border Economies: the Maquiladora Export Landscape, Juan Robles
Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, Fei-Ling Tseng

Related: Rewiring (Tele)Geography

The NY Times recently reported on the tendency of countries to redirect internet traffic away from the United States. Intelligence agencies have previously been gifted with the convenience of a large majority of international internet usage eventually finding its way through US cables. This trend has been reversing in the last 5-8 years, as the US falls woefully behind up-to-date submarine cable updates, and as increased intraregional networks offer an ability to keep terabytes more local.

[As submarine cables hit land, the optical signal is converted in a landing station into a terrestrial system.]

Several regions have witnessed dramatic shifts in internet use that has put considerable economic pressure (and opportunism) on expansion. Latin America, Asia, and Africa have reduced their rerouting dependence on the US to 70%, 55%, and 5% respectively.

[Intraregional networks in Asia. Asia has 501 million of the 1.3 billion internet users and it is growing by 882% per year.]

Probably most significant in that map is what is referred to as the SEA-ME-WE 4 (South East Asia, Middle East, Western Europe 4) cable route which is funneled through the Mediterranean, Suez, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. It creates a intraregional link from Marseilles to Singapore. January 30, 2008 saw the severing of the SEA-ME-WE 4 and FLAG network, providing an opportune moment to upgrade the network.

[The SEA-ME-ME 4 cable route is the backbone of Europe and Asia internet connections.]

[Hot-wiring the seabed.]

What appears initially as (invisible) lines on a global map suddenly can be read as the very modern day gates and thresholds that assert the power, economic vitality, cultural credentials driving competitive urbanism. Villages such as Tarifa, Spain, strategically positioned as a constricted data threshold between the Atlantic and Mediterranean hubs, become a key information harbor at the scale of the data intraregion.

[Global drifter velocity data ... or smart buoys gathering data as they wander aimlessly. In any given month since 1993, there has been an array of more than 600 drifters in the global ocean. Image via EOS.]

A week ago the New York Times expressed that we might be ailing from data exhaustion with the constantly streaming (and often conflicted) deluge of speculations, trajectories, and forecasts of environmental shifts. Citing Greenland’s ice shedding and species behavioral changes – probably the first time that jellyfish have made it on to many a front page – the public is suffering from whiplash as new information and phenomena are rumored to be a result of human-influenced climate change. The argument from Andrew Revkin’s article is that the cacophony of research findings is producing an increased ambivalence – a kind of boy-who-cried-wolf disbelief.

[Enviro-images producing a data deluge. Image via New York Times.]

Of equal interest to the reader psychology resulting from climate info, is the methods of augmenting the environment to harvest such data. Land, sea and air are increasingly monitored, likely more than at any other time in history. Like a body on life-support rigged from head to toe in a network of pinging nodes and cables continuously, every blurp and hiccup is registered, recorded, and broadcasted. Access to enviro-data is even more readily available. And with all of this enviro-dataveillance, comes a slew of augmenting devices mining information with a delicate, presumably non-invasive hand. Devices operate nodally across some larger meshwork of land or water.

In that same article an image from NASA appeared of a plot of buoys monitoring the ocean. Chasing this down, the AOML in partnership with NOAA, have a project called the Global Drifter Program that is essentially satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys. Here is a snapshot of their current whereabouts as of … um …two days ago:

[This array of 1175 buoys are ambling along monitoring surface sea temperature (SST).]

And then all this data of course is archived and linked sequentially. For example, feel free to browse through the last 27 years of of sea surface temperatures here. The augmenting technologies are often simple, almost home-tech assemblies of GPS, radio frequencies, and satellites. Remote sensing through satellites can handle the bulk of monitoring, but many projects, such as the Global Drifter program, require more haptic sensing.

[The deployment of drifters is often done through a kind of sea-faring crowd-farming. Drifter buoys are launched by Volunteer Observation Ships (VOS).]

[Topex/Poseidon satellite system provided the first continuous, global coverage of ocean surface topography and allows week-to-week oceanic variations. Image via Aviso.]

[QuickSCAT satellites record sea surface wind speeds and direction. This scatterometer operates by transmitting high-frequency microwave pulses to the ocean surface and measuring the echoed radar pulses bounced back to the satellite.]

Related Post: Vortices, Heaps, and Enzymes

]]> http://infranetlab.org/blog/2008/08/enviro-veillance-augmented-oceans/feed/ 1 http://infranetlab.org/blog/2008/08/data-island/ http://infranetlab.org/blog/2008/08/data-island/#comments Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:48:15 +0000 InfraNet Lab http://infranetlab.org/blog/?p=98

[The continuous interior of data centers is a palace to the monolithic slabs of data storage.]

In an increasingly ubi-comp environment, massive data centers processing or storing data continue to sprout up in contexts and sites of economic and geographic convenience. In a post-Silicone-valley glow, many sites are happy to promote their contexts as ideal for these data centers. Iceland promotes itself as just such a site.

[Brochure pitching Iceland as the ideal environment for massive data centers.]

With clean water, stable power and cool air as an ideal location, Iceland is lobbying for the search engines and IT firms to come into the cold. The most alluring project within this agenda is Data Islandia. Data Islandia is a storage company based in Iceland that has tabled a green data center (link via Drunken Data) in the town of Sandgerdi in southwest Iceland. The facility will be built near a former US Naval Air Station, and will use natural wind cooling to reduce energy usage. And I am sure that abundant geothermal is figuring into the convenience to boot. The landform references Icelandic turf farms and makes extensive use of the landscape.

[The rolling hills of a proposed server farm in Iceland from Data Islandia designed by architect Robert Örn Arnarson.]

The Sandgerdi data centre will have a moss roof. Putting plants on the roof doesn't just drop a building into the landscape, it can absorb excess water, protect the materials of the roof from the sun, and increase the diversity of flora and fauna. The 4,000 m2 digital data archive is designed by Danish architect Robert Örn Arnarson.

[IBM\'s Project Big Green.]

IBM’s Project Big Green is another green data center proposal responding to the economic (and environmental) inefficiency. Today, roughly 50 cents is spent on energy for every dollar of computer hardware. And this is only expected to increase.

[Strangely religious overtones from the imagery package for IBM\'s Project Green.]