for an amplification of up to +24dBm in an affordable manner. Using an erbium-ytterbium doped fiber instead allows for a gain of +33dBm, however again the amount of power that can be fed into the fiber is limited. In single carrier configurations the dominating limitation is self phase modulation induced by the Kerr effect which limits the amplification to +18 dBm per fiber. In WDM configurations the limitation due to crossphase modulation becomes predominant instead. Optical pre-amplifiers are often used to negate the thermal noise of the receiver. Pumping the pre-amplifier with a 980 nm laser leads to a noise of at most 3.5 dB, with a noise of 5 dB usually obtained with a 1480 nm laser. The noise has to be filtered using optical filters. Raman amplification can be used to extend the reach or the capacity of an unrepeatered cable, by launching 2 frequencies into a single fiber; one carrying data signals at 1550 nm, and the other pumping them at 1450 nm. Launching a pump frequency (pump laser light) at a power of just one watt leads to an increase in reach of 45 km or a 6-fold increase in capacity. Another way to increase the reach of a cable is by using unpowered repeaters called remote optical pre-amplifiers (ROPAs); these still make a cable count as unrepeatered since the repeaters do not require electrical power but they do require a pump laser light to be transmitted alongside the data carried by the cable; the pump light and the data are often transmitted in physically separate fibers. The ROPA contains a doped fiber that uses the pump light (often a 1480 nm laser light) to amplify the data signals carried on the rest of the fibers. Importance of submarine cables Currently 99% of the data traffic that is crossing oceans is carried by undersea cables. The reliability of submarine cables is high, especially when (as noted above) multiple paths are available in the event of a cable break. Also, the total carrying capacity of submarine cables is in the terabits per second, while satellites typically offer only 1,000 megabits per second and display higher latency. However, a typical multi-terabit, transoceanic submarine cable system costs several hundred million dollars to construct. As a result of these cables' cost and usefulness, they are highly valued not only by the corporations building and operating them for profit, but also