FEATURE
A GLOBAL CRISIS
Showcasing Dependence on Submarine Cable Infrastructure
T
he spread of the contagious SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the illness COVID-19, has led to a range of physical distancing measures and lockdowns. In turn this has resulted in many millions of people being required to work from home. Compounded by demand for online entertainment, there has been a sharp spike in internet traffic since mid-February. Internet Exchange Points have reported significant traffic increases, while daytime traffic in individual countries has increased by 40% or more. The strain on telecom networks has been dealt with by several measures, including a reduction in video quality by some OTT VoD players (Netflix and Amazon in Europe, for example), and the acquisition of additional bandwidth from wholesale providers (particularly noticeable in Africa and Latin America). However, since telecom networks are geared to manage peak traffic - roughly during the hours of 6pm to 10pm - most have coped with the increased traffic demands in working day hours. During the last two decades BuddeComm has been analysing the maturing telecom infrastructure globally, assessing its readiness to support smart infrastructure and its associated components (including tele-working, tele-health, tele-education and similar services). It is a testament to the robustness of this infrastructure that in the short space of three months telecom networks internationally have coped with the extra traffic demanded of them. It will be fascinating to assess what long-term patterns will emerge from the crisis, in terms of tele-working becoming mainstream rather than a perceived bonus for employees, and tele-health being considered normal
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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
BY HENRY LANCASTER
rather than just an aspirational cost-saving platform. There are good reasons to expand internet capacity, and to keep doing so as a continuing process. Africa is a case in point. It is one of the world’s regions where traffic demand will be particularly high in coming years. Many African countries are experiencing strong economic growth: in 2019 ten of the top 20 and five of the top ten GDP performers were in Africa. This growth ultimately depends on old-fashioned infrastructure, including roads, rail and ports, but also connectivity. This is why so much effort is underway to build national telecom networks and to link them to the global economy. Redundancy is a good argument in itself for having multiple cables. Cables are not infallible to breaks and other disruptions, though the number of breakages on submarine cables is dwarfed by the number of terrestrial cable breakages, often made by overenthusiastic building contractors. In March 2020, the SAT3 cable, running along the continent’s East Coast, was broken, leading to unstable services in several African countries. At the same time, the WACS cable - running from South Africa to the UK - was also broken, resulting is low internet speeds for several of the connected countries. Ideally, traffic on a cut submarine cable should be diverted to another submarine cable, and not go terrestrially: reroutes via land-based networks are costly for customers needing low-latency (the financial sector comes to mind) and add further pressure on terrestrial links. Kenya provides a clear example of where efforts to expand terrestrial networks are dependent on submarine infrastructure.