by
Mark Ollig
Andrew
Blum regularly uses the Internet the way many of us do.
We
sit down at our computer, get comfortable, open our web browser, see our
Internet homepage, go where we want to go, and do what we want to do.
I
think most of us take the Internet for granted; we do not know exactly how it
all works – we just assume there is some magic Internet genie in a box
someplace watching over it.
Many
folks believe access to the Internet is as important as having a phone and
electricity.
We
expect the Internet to always being “on” and available to us.
Blum,
a young correspondent for Wired magazine in the UK, described his Internet
revelation during a recent Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED)
conference.
Yours
truly watched the TED video in which Blum tells the story of how one day, he
sat down at his computer, opened his Safari web browser, and saw this message:
“You are not connected to the Internet.”
Blum
then did what many of us would do.
No,
not panic; he called his local Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Blum
told the story to the audience about the ISP “cable guy” who came out to the
building where he lived to work on the problem.
Blum
described how he and the cable guy proceeded to trace out the path of the Internet
cable from his computer to the cable modem. From there, the Internet cable led
them to a “dusty clump of cables” hidden behind the couch.
One
cable from behind the couch traveled through an outside wall, to the front of
his building, and then veered down into the basement.
From
the basement, the cable changed course. It re-routed back outdoors where it
joined up with several other cables attached on the building’s outside wall.
A
scurrying noise caught their attention, Blum and the cable guy looked up; they
observed a grey squirrel running along the cable.
“There’s
your problem, a squirrel is chewing on your Internet,” said the cable guy.
The
thought of a common grey squirrel having the wherewithal to bring down the
powerful and mighty Internet by chewing on it seemed to completely dumbfound
Blum.
“The
Internet is a transcendent idea. It is a set of protocols that has changed
everything, from shopping to dating, to revolutions . . . it was unequivocally
not something a squirrel could chew on,” Blum told the audience, which found
this sentence amusing.
A
picture of a small black plastic box (about the size of a lunchbox) with an
attached red light was shown on the large screen to the audience.
This
box was Blum’s Internet cable modem – the magic Internet genie itself.
To
him, this had been the physical representation of the Internet.
Having
a squirrel literally cutting off Blum’s Internet led him to speculate about
where the Internet cable went.
He
wanted to know how this cable linked into the physical world and connected with
the Internet and all of its parts.
He
even wondered if the Internet was an actual place he could go to and visit.
“Could
I go there? Who would I meet?” Blum contemplated.
His
curiosity about what the Internet is made of led him on a two-year adventure
investigating the physical realm of the Internet.
He
visited many data center facilities, including one large data network
colocation center at 60 Hudson Street in New York.
The
60 Hudson Street building comprises a full city block, and was the former
Western Union building.
It
is one of about a dozen buildings in the world where telecommunication’s
companies interconnect and route telecom and Internet traffic.
More
networks of the Internet connect to each other in the 60 Hudson Street building
than in any other building in the world.
In
Minnesota, the largest data network colocation center is the 511 Building,
which is directly east of the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis.
Your
telecom-experienced columnist spent a few months in that building while working
for a telecommunications provider.
The
511 Building is also known as Minnesota’s premier Telecom Hotel, because many
telecommunication companies have facilities here.
It
is a major data hub used by ISP’s and telecom companies to connect with the
core routers and primary data “backbones” throughout the country. These
connections are made over ultra-high bandwidths using fiber-optic cables.
Think
of this data hub like that of the human backbone which distributes signals to
the smaller nerves throughout the body.
The
511 Building has over 300,000 square feet to support its multi-tenant
telecommunication switching facilities, fiber-optic network system providers,
and optical-cabled backbone interconnections.
The
511 Building has backup data network connectivity, and a technically advanced
climate-controlled environment.
This
data networking center has emergency air-conditioning units, dual electrical
utility feeds, and multiple backup power generators.
I
was impressed seeing all of the technology, equipment, and people which support
telecommunications and the Internet working inside this building.
Here’s
a link with some photos of the Minnesota 511 Building; including one with the
Metrodome: http://www.511building.com/photos.html.
Check
back next week, as we follow Andrew Blum’s adventurous search for the Internet.
