O
nce again January is upon us which means that it is the time for the annual PTC conference. This will be the 35th, and this quantum is a real measure of the durability of this event through good times and bad. Over the years PTC has grown to become the major telecommunications conference of the region. This is particularly the case in the submarine cable segment of the industry. 2013 is a big year with SubOptic occurring in April so PTC has been expanded to provide a taste of what will be experienced in April.
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PTC13 will again see the popular submarine cable workshop on Sunday morning (20th January) this year organized by the SubOptic content team. Richard
Elliott and Alice Shelton are bringing together an array of executives discussing and presenting on some of various facets of our global connectivity business. I am really looking forward to the sizeable segment on marine maintenance as we all know that there is a growing crisis with the cost of O&M and the availability, or should I say unavailability of sufficient cable ships. On the Tuesday, there will be a session which brings together some of the interesting developments that are occurring, ones you may not have heard much about. This featured session will bring together discussion about what Hawaii is doing to avoid being bypassed, a new cable in Chile, new developments in the rules and
regs of the USA and the latest in initiatives surrounding trans-pacific cables. But the one that grabs me is hearing about the new body, the World Ocean Council, which through it aspirations to protect the seas of the world has the potential to frustrate the provision of cables even further. As if it is not challenging enough to get the approvals to provide a cable, here looks like an attempt to make it harder. I think the presentation will be a call to arms to protect our industry. What an ideal prelude to the SubOptic conference where the action plan can be developed further. As a special treat we will have a new Executive Interactive Forum on the Wednesday and we have been fortunate to secure some of the more lateral creative