In our January report, we identified 93 upcoming submarine cable projects. By April, this had grown to 116 projects – a 25% increase in the number of projects in only four months. So what types of projects are driving the industry during this boom period? Perhaps most notably during this current boom, transoceanic cable projects have reemerged as a major growth engine. This is noticeably different from the recovery period of 2005-2007, in which virtually all of the growth came from regional systems. As with most industries, the big projects are the ones that get most of the attention and the media has literally drooled over developments involving the transpacific cables – four of which are under development across the Pacific Ocean.
The Place of Regional Submarine Cable Systems in the Cur rent Boom By John Manock Times are good for the submarine cable industry. After the drought of 2002-2004 and a slow recovery period, the industry as we approach the middle of 2008 is booming. Cable systems of every size are being installed, suppliers are booked, cable ships are in demand and investment money is readily available. We at TSA call our annual review of the submarine cable market the TSA Radar Screen Report™. We chose that name during the depths of the drought to evoke the image of a lonely radar operator scanning for blips out on the horizon – blips representing submarine cable projects at a time when there was virtually no activity in the industry.
11
When we published the January 2008 edition of the report, we noted that the title could
evoke a different image – that of a radar screen now being watched by an air traffic controller at a busy metropolitan airport. We, as an industry, have moved from scanning for distant opportunities to trying to manage a vibrant market growing so fast that it has begun to tax the industry’s manufacturing and installation capabilities.
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Jan-08
Apr-08
A casual review of Google hits for news on plans for new submarine cables during the first three months of 2008 shows that the most covered news stories of the year were the transpacific cables and the projects linking Australia to Guam and Hawaii. And Google itself not only tracked the news but helped make the news too. The most widely publicized development in the industry during 2008 was Google’s formal announcement that it would be a member of one of the transpacific consortia, Unity. This January announcement, as with most announcements involving Google, set off a blogging frenzy that was matched only by the disruption Figure 1 - Number of Projects Tracked by TSA’s Radar Screen Report™, January to April 2008