Apart from the Stephenson article linked above, this book, The Victorian Internet has got interesting details about undersea cabling and much else…
I read this
book last year about the first transatlantic cable. It was amazing that they could do it given the technology available to them. They were also damn persistent. I think of this book when a rocket blows up and some folks say the builders should give up.
Blind Man’s Bluff has a chapter on how the Navy used a sub to tap a Soviet underwater cable during the cold water. Facinating stuff.
I moonlighted loading cable on a cable layer back in '65. This obviously before fibre optics, but the cable was about as Sublight describes, 4-5 inches in diameter w/ a repeater about every 20-25 miles. The holds were cylinder shaped and there were about 10-12 guys to lay the cable. It was pretty slow work and they would often stop the cable. Each time we loaded a repeater, they would run a test to assure it hadn’t been damaged. The pay was great, we got about $5.00 an hour, excellent for the times. This was near Portsmouth, N.H.
Basically, they have to be powered from shore through the cable itself.
Would a RTG supply enough power?
Some interesting artifacts from the Bamfield Pacific Submarine Cable Station.