In this Hawaii Techies Edition of the MobileViews Podcast, I’m joined by guest co-host Kiman Wong. We discuss our memories and involvement in various Internet connectivity efforts starting in the 1980s analog modem days through current day broadband services. Kiman and I had parallel paths over the past 30 years. We both started at GTE Telephone Operations but then diverged. I was involved in some aspects of the 1990s DSL rollout and then in the 2010s, as part of the State of Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs CATV/Broadband Division. Kiman spent the next several decades at Time Warner Oceanic Cable (now part of Charter Spectrum) including a period as the General Manager for its Roadrunner Cable Modem service.
We also touch on a few related topics.
Kiman noted that Amazon Prime Photos has unlimited still photo storage but a finite video limit. This Amazon Photos FAQ confirms that this limit is 5GB.
Amazon Photos has a 5GB video upload limit
I noted that the retired AT&T tran-pacific submarine cable (HAW-4) was transferred to the University of Hawaii which created the undersea Aloha Cabled Observatory.
U of Hawaii Cabled Observatory
What is there ?
There are five modules that are connected together on the seafloor. The Junction Box is connected to the HAW-4 cable and to the Observatory module. Together, they supply 1200 watts of power and 100 Megabits per second of Ethernet communications to sensor systems on these two modules, and to the other three modules. The other modules are the Camera tripod, the AMM bottom node, and the TAAM mooring. Sensors provide live video of the ocean bottom around the ACO, sound from local and distant sources, currents, pressure, temperature, and salinity.
You can find a collection of audio and video clips from the undersea observatory here:
ACO Audio/Video Library
Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.