SURVIVING
the Telecoms rollercoaster
- the three-legged stool principle By Toby Bailey Sit on a three-legged bar stool in a bar anywhere around the world and as a general rule it won’t fall over (without alcholic provocation that is!). In the dynamic world of the telecoms industry a three-legged strategy may hold the key to the survival and continuity of supply for a number of smaller companies. A case in point is the recent history of The Engineering Business Ltd (EB). Like many engineering companies, EB rapidly
expanded its business by supplying equipment to the growing submarine telecoms market. EB specialised in designing and building submarine cable installation equipment, in particular cable ploughs and their associated deck equipment. During the rapid period of growth of the submarine telecoms sector there was a constant drive for equipment that could bury cable deeper, gentler, faster and cheaper. EB focussed its engineering 40
talents on this area, developing a new range of cable ploughs, culminating at the peak of the “arms race” in the design and build of two Sea Stallion 3 systems. These featured a wide range of technical innovations to meet the above aims. For example, an integrated vessel control system that integrated the plough operating system with other vessel systems such as survey and DP. The control system also permitted control of the entire cable installation process from the bridge reducing manning levels and increasing operating efficiency. Productivity was further enhanced by a buoyant umbilical system (the first to be judged a success in a cable plough application) that allowed the plough umbilical cable to be deployed without manually adding floatation. At the sharp end an aggressive share allowed full depth burial of cable and repeaters up to 3m in a wide range of seabed conditions whilst its design also minimised the residual tension in the buried cable. Unfortunately, after spending thousand’s of man hours developing and proving these new technologies the market for additional new systems all but vanished