cableawareness.com AN INTERNET-BASED CABLE AWARENESS STRATEGY BENEFITING BOTH CABLE OWNERS AND THE FISHING INDUSTRY Given the dramatic increase in the number of submarine cables installed in recent years and the fact that fishermen worldwide are developing practices that involve the deployment of heavier equipment in deeper water, cable awareness and cable protection are more important today than ever before. Damaged cables result in significant revenue losses to the cable owners and damaged or lost fishing gear results in significant revenue losses to the fishermen who may have snagged a submarine cable. Thales GeoSolutions (Pacific), Inc., has recently launched a web site that is aimed at providing cable awareness information on behalf of cable owners to the fishing industry. Over the past three years, Thales GeoSolutions has been promoting a conceptual system that would provide fishermen and other interested parties with “basic RPL data” and “cable awareness charts” over the
David Millar Thales GeoSolutions (Pacific), Inc., USA Bruce Rein GCI, USA Internet. This concept is now a reality and the site has been live since August 2002. GCI, which owns and operates Alaska United Fiber Optic Cable System, has recently added CableAwareness.com as part of its cable protection strategy. It is hoped that the site will gain acceptance and ultimately become the source for all cable awareness data and products.
The Traditional Approach to Cable Awareness The concepts of cable awareness and cable protection are not new. In fact, they have been issues since submarine cables were first installed in the mid-1800s. Despite significant increases in both the number of submarine 25
cable systems and submarine cable owners and the technological advances of “the day”, cable protection is handled very similarly today as it was 25 years ago. Cable owners typically provide and advertise a telephone “Help Line”. They now also provide access to cable information via their own website. There has also been a recent movement to set up local arrangements with local fisheries groups. In all cases, the cable owners and/ or maintenance authorities produce cable awareness charts, chartlets and/or electronic charts and distribute these to fishermen directly or via fisheries groups. While these methods “work”, there is significant room for improvement. There is currently very limited coordination and collaboration between cable owners. There is no single source of information for submarine cables within a given area. As a result, fishermen or fishing organizations must go to several different sources for cable information