Pacific Outlook
The other major factor is the insatiable demand by modern human societies to communicate. There are still many millions of people yet to regularly experience, enjoy, and benefit from basic on-line connectivity, fixed or wireless. Many of these people are in the Pacific region, and they are from economies that have the potential to sustain the development of modern communications infrastructure.
By Brett O’Riley
As that demand has continued to increase, we have seen some interesting developments that I expect to see continue. Machine to machine communications is a major area of demand growth, and I see plenty of signs that over time the demand from these applications, be it RFID, vending machines, oil field monitoring or radio telescopes; will be as large in capacity terms as the communications requirements generated by people.
2009 dawns and for many of us there is a sense of déjà vu.
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A period of dramatic building activity in the submarine cable industry driven by carriers and new market entrants; followed by a financial crisis that catches projects and operators in various states of completion and confidence. On the face of it the parallels with the “tech wreck” are there as the debt markets have contracted or closed to all but the best of investment propositions.
While the magnitude of the “financial crisis” facing the global economy is without doubt, I believe there is good reason to believe that 2009 will present a positive outlook for the Pacific region. I make no apologies for being an optimist in my view. After 20 years in telecommunications I think the underlying industry growth rate, coupled with our ability to continually drive down operating costs, has created an extremely resilient telecoms industry.
2008 was a year of significant milestones in Asia-Pacific that will continue to positively impact our industry in 2009: • The completion of the Trans Pacific Express cable system between the People’s Republic of China and the USA, the first of the latest generation of transPacific cables. • The completion of the Endeavour cable between Australia and Hawai’i. • The development of the Japan to USA Unity cable system representing a different joint venture model for development, with elements of consortiums and private systems included.