ANALYTICS
BY KIERAN CLARK
THE COVID IMPACT – 2019 VS 2020
T
he world has gone through an unprecedented disruption with the COVID-19 pandemic. This has both caused a huge increase in capacity demand as people work from home and companies rely even more on cloud services, and a disruption in the submarine fiber industry’s ability to produce new systems and maintain existing ones. Stringent quarantine procedures have hampered all maritime operations, adding weeks or even months to a project’s timeline. New COVID cases continue to rise around the world (Figure 1), even as vaccines begin rolling out. It is likely that the world will still be grappling with the impact of this pandemic for most of 2021 as getting the entire world vaccinated is not something that can happen overnight. Additionally, procedures that have been developed to deal with the current crisis may stay in place to lessen the impact of any future outbreaks. This pandemic will likely have long-term impacts on all industries throughout the world that affect work flows and overall economic output for years to come.
AS OPINED IN MAY 2020:
No one knows the real economic repercussions post CV19; indeed no one even knows when the pandemic will be declared officially history. A severe economic slowdown allied to a reversal of globalisation and outsourcing
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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
may well negatively impact new cable build on conventional routes. Of course, one could argue that changes in work habits, less travel and less physical presence will add to ‘conventional’ demand. Less conventional sources of demand like digital service growth in mass populations, security and digital independence may create demand for new paths such as the Southern Oceans and unconventional routings in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. (Tibbles, 2020) Eight months later, these sentiments still hold true. Welcome to SubTel Forum’s annual Global Outlook issue. This month,
we will take a brief look at how the industry performed around the world last year and see what the future might bring. The data used in this article is obtained from the public domain and is tracked by the ever-evolving SubTel Forum Analytics Submarine Cable Database, where products like the Submarine Cable Almanac, Submarine Cable Map and Submarine Telecoms Industry Report find their roots. Compared to new system activity in 2019, system output in 2020 fell by nearly half. In total, there were 11 new systems implemented in 2020, compared to 20 the previous year. Nearly every region around the world saw a