FEATURE
ADDING A NEW BRANCH TO AN EXISTING CABLE: LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS BY MIKE CONRADI AND LEWIS BAXTER
O
ne question on which we have been asked to advise on a few occasions has been where a client (the “Customer”) wishes to build a new branch to add it to an existing submarine cable system owned and operated by a third party (the “Supplier”). In this case the Customer will typically need not only a permission to connect to the Supplier’s system, but they will also need to purchase capacity, spectrum or a fibre pair along the Supplier’s Trunk route. This sort of bespoke arrangement brings with it a number of unique legal considerations, which are discussed in this article below.
52 SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
STRUCTURE
The structure of the transaction might be as follows: The Supplier is a provider of telecommunications products and services, and is the owner and operator of an existing submarine network connecting various countries in the region. The Customer and the Supplier have agreed in principle that the Supplier will reserve capacity on its existing submarine cable and the Customer will be permitted to connect its own, new, branch cable to the Supplier’s existing trunk cable in order to facilitate a connection from the Customer’s location onwards. As part of this arrangement, and in order for the arrange-