With new communication services entering the mainstream such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV it is important to remember that the vast majority of all international communications traffic still passes through a subsea network.
Cable Technology Snapshot By Gabriel Ruhan
It is more than 150 years since Global Marine laid the first international submarine telegraph cable linking Britain to France but, despite major developments in satellite communications, subsea networks still provide a more cost effective and reliable solution which has the capacity to handle mass global communications on a real-time basis. This growing demand for new communication services, combined with the continued appetite for business support services, such as outsourced call centres and back-up data centres is positive news for the subsea industry. Recent findings from TeleGeography Research, who monitor global bandwidth usage, showed that the telecoms industry raised capacity by about one terabit (a trillion bits) per second to about 5.5 terabits per second last year just to meet the growing demand across the Atlantic. Additionally, more liberal telecom regulation in regions such as the Caribbean is creating more competitive telecom markets. This is driving demand from local operators for regional network installations that will provide
domestic consumers and businesses with the infrastructure for cheaper and more reliable telephone calls and internet services. However, despite all these positive signs, Global Marine does not anticipate the next wave of big cable installations to happen until between 2010 to 2020 and, when they do, this will be a gradual and structured upgrade of trans-oceanic systems whose older cables will be coming to the end of the 25 year life span. In technology terms, this means that the industry is currently focusing mainly on cable maintenance, rather than installation, although it is also important to highlight that we should not view our expertise as being purely of relevance for the telecoms sector. As a case in point, Global Marine has been able to utilise its cabling knowledge and capabilities to further build its presence in the oil and gas, renewable energy, defence and scientific research sectors. Recent examples of our work include providing power and fibre optic links to Canada’s most advanced seafloor observatory in conjunction with the University of Victoria (VENUS) and repairing a Tsunami monitoring system for the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). But what are the consequences of this growing demand for telecom based services? One is
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