Letter to a friend Letter to a friend from Jean JeanDevos Devos
My dear friend,
My Dear Friend
We members of the submarine cable community; we used to regret the fact that our activity is so much ignored. This is now “Botany Bay” over! The recent Asian “Cyber black out” I published a modestfinger novel,pointing whose title got a lot of recently press coverage, It is the place inmulti Australia where is Botany about the Bay. “submarine cables breaks” Alcatel established a around Taiwan.
knows that the vast majority of the internet traffic is flowing through undersea fibres optics! and l’Astrolabe, landed in 1788 to discover that
Warrior event was still inoffshore everyone’s memory. It damaged several cables Algeria. is for these reasons among that STC (UK) This country has since takenothers this into rejected the Alcatel‘s suggestion to come with a consideration diversifying the access routes joint bid, to offer a “European” solution. and landing points.
One of the winning factors has been the Port-Botany cable factory. Such a factory was a It is a fact that a sum of independent strong requirement from OTC (now Telstra) and projects does notGovernment. automatically lead to the Australian the mostAlcatel optimized global network. TheSuch a was the most motivated. shortest and theits cheapest solutions factoryroutes could expand influence in the Pacific dowhere not often give the best answers. the three other players were historically well established in this region, which represents large part of their market. Mya friend, I guess this will come They as a saw this factory as aupcoming risk for their existing facilities! debate in the SubOptic forum. SubOptic ‘87 in Versailles came at the right time. SubOptic is not a conference like any other It is where the Australian teams discovered the one where people tend to sell their products French model, a close cooperation between and services. It is our industry gathering, Alcatel and FT, exactly what they wanted to esaiming review improve all aspects of tablishtoin their and country. our activity. My friend, things are changed since, but one thing stays true: When you offer something, See you there. the reader can see between the lines if you are or not genuinely motivated and sincere. Then your offer becomes really attractive and this opens the route to “Botany Bay.”
ACaptain first possible reaction is: around “This isbearing great! the Cook was already Our vitalflag. roleSois Botany now fully British Bayrecognised!” is now for me the Going a bit could also a reality! symbol of adeeper dream one which becomes Tasman 2 has another say “Well, thank godbeen thereyet is no real chapter in this long Anglo-French competition! alternative to the sub cable solution and The award came is outquite as a exceptional. big surprise to this typetoofAlcatel earthquake many, including inside Alcatel. Everybody was submarine cable facSo, no problem!” naturally expecting the British to win that bat- Jean Devos tory in 1989 as part of The same way the newspapers only speak tle, and such an expectation was at that time its contract for the about trains when one is running late, the Invery reality this event will have and needs logical. Tasman 2 link. In this See you soon. same way submarine cables come in the to have an impact on the way projects There were so many difficulties and same bay, where two media when an earthquake cuts one or the are designed and on the way theAustralia telecom and misunderstanding between centuries before more causing an internetFrench disruption. And operators work out their security France, the main one being the French presence expedition Submarcom Consulting this one was really big! Now everyonemade of plan. in the area, the worse being the nuclear InPacific 2003 an undersea earthquake “La Pérouse”
Jean Devos
two ships, La Boussole
bomb experiment in Tahiti! The sad Rainbow
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