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Comment by localplume | Hacker News Reader

What is the best way to mitigate the effects? I guess nothing for long distance since the radio waves need to bounce off the atmosphere, but what about for more local/direct line of sight?

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Fibre optics deployed under the surface. Copper cables may work too for smaller flares, but they tend to burn up during larger events. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

I don't think all Fiber optic is free from the effects of geomagnetic storms like the Carrington event. Lots of "fiber" also has copper along with it for critical telemetry and for powering repeaters placed directly into the cable assembly. If the repeaters burn up, the cable still fails.

That being said, if a geomagnetic storm takes out fiber laid on the bottom of the ocean we're probably all going to be needing new chromosomes shortly anyhow.

Fiber optics still need amplifiers every couple of kilometers – and to feed these, you'll need a metal-based electricity supply.

More like 100km, I believe.

Yes, but since in many locations in the world you won't find a power grid to tap into every hundred kilometers, that still means you'll effectively have a cable carrying both fiber and copper.

fiber optics might give you data, but you cannot run power over them, and power lines are basically huge antennas... There's not a lot you can do to mitigate that

This only affects HF radio. HF radio goes long distances cause bounce off ionosphere which is disrupted. HF radio isn't used for much these days, mainly amateurs. Most uses have switched to satellite which I don't think is disrupted. The one important use that might be affected is long-distance aviation radio.

Higher frequency line-of-sight radios should not be affected. I did see that the extra noise can affect GPS.

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