FEATURE
THE FUTURE OF SUBSEA CABLES WE’LL NEED LARGER, MORE EFFICIENT SUBSEA CABLE SYSTEMS IN MORE PLACES TO MEET GROWING DEMAND FOR GLOBAL BANDWIDTH BY ALEX VAXMONSKY
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ubsea cables play an essential role in enabling the digital world we know today, but it’s important to consider that subsea cables predate the internet by well over a century. These cables are merely a transmission medium we’ve adapted to support various communications technologies over the years. As we look toward the future, we must ask how subsea cables will continue to evolve to meet the changing requirements of the digital world. Even today, bandwidth is exploding to all-time highs. That’s why it’s no surprise that the volume of subsea cable construction is the highest it’s ever been in the 150-year history of the medium. Major projects are bringing new capacity into emerging and high-growth markets such as Africa (2Africa, Equi-
ano), the Middle East (Oman Australia Cable) and India (India-Asia-Xpress and India-Europe-Xpress), a major step toward closing the digital divide globally. However, even well-established subsea cable corridors are seeing new construction to keep up with growing demand. For instance, the AMITIE cable in the transatlantic corridor is designed to offer high capacity and low-latency performance while also meeting environmental sustainability goals. In spite of offering 10x more capacity than older cable systems, AMITIE is forecast to use half the energy.[1] This offers a glimpse into the future of subsea cables: All future projects must balance ever-growing demand for capacity with the sustainability targets of the organizations that will use that capacity. In the Pacific, the Southern Cross NEXT cable provides NOVEMBER 2023 | ISSUE 133 69