FEATURE FEATURE
SUBMARINE CABLE DESIGN LIFE LESSONS
A Case Study for Operating the Italy Greece-1 Repeaterless Cable System Beyond the Design Life
W
hen UNIFI COMMUNICATIONS (UNIFI) completed its acquisition of WIS TELECOM (WIS) during 2016, the transaction included an existing submarine cable between Italy and Greece, known as the Italy Greece-1 (IG-1) fiber cable. For the past few years, while UNIFI has been restructuring WIS to improve the company’s basic financials, we have also been investigating the history and status of the IG-1 fiber cable. Unfortunately, due to its unusual origin alongside an undersea electrical power cable as shown below, IG-1 has never been utilized to its full potential. Both the submarine electrical power cable and the IG-1 submarine fiber optic cable illustrated above were constructed by Pirelli in 1995 for TERNA, the largest independent electricity transmission system operator in Europe.
28
SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
BY BRIAN CRAWFORD
As a result, the IG-1 fiber cable does not have the traditional arrangements found with most undersea fiber cable systems, such as cable landing licenses issued by national (telecommunications) authorities, purpose-built beach landing facilities, and purpose-built cable stations. At the time, TERNA’s primary objective was the construction of the power cable from Italy to Greece, and the installation of the IG-1 fiber cable was secondary. In other words, the IG-1 fiber cable was built at the same time as the power cable to satisfy TERNA’s long-term internal communications needs for the power cable. However, within the IG-1 cable, TERNA included plenty of extra fiber, which suggests they may have been planning to sell dark fiber to third parties. As it turned out, TERNA sold the entire IG-1 fiber cable to WIND Italy
