SubTel Forum Issue #76 - Subsea Capacity

76 M A Y

2014 ISSN 1948-3031

Subsea Capacity Edition

In This Issue: • How to Provide Subsea Capacity On Demand • Africa Elevated To New Heights • Back to the Future: Control of the Oceans and Beyond?

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Welcome to Issue 76, our Subsea Capacity edition.

Lately, things have been a little busier than normal here.

We’re getting rid of our big printer.

In between cleaning out the flower beds and planting a few bushes, we decided to accomplish the most extensive remake of SubTel Forum products in our thirteen year history. You may have noticed the ‘updated’ Almanac last week w i t h dynamic visuals, enhanced s e a r c h features and just plain more and cleaner cable system information. Not to be outdone, our magazine has been transformed into a Portrait edition with the more whizbang features as well, allowing more dramatic picture spreads

Five years ago we leased a beautiful industrial-strength color copier, which was the size of a doublewide refrigerator laying astride. We build a purpose-built closet, which we stuffed with various reams of different sized paper along with color cartridges and a way too small trash bin. We printed single-sided, double-sided, and booklet in all sizes and colors, then auto-stapled as necessary on the top corner or binding or whatever. Work products were finished with a light sheen, which popped the words and images. It was magnificent; it was a work of art.

A funny thing happened a year or so into the lease as we noticed the need for printing diminish.

Anticipations of requiring thousands of printed ‘masterpieces’ per month dwindled. The need for speed outweighed the tactile satisfaction of the glossy. And so we adjusted.

to accompany the usual excellent industry articles. The cool thing is that I can read these products on my laptop and tablet; or if I have my glasses, a telephone.

man mancave in its place. possibilities are endless…

The

Wayne Nielsen is the Founder and Publisher of Submarine Telecoms Forum, and previously in 1991, founded and published “Soundings”, a print magazine developed for then BT Marine.

In 1998, he founded and published for SAIC the magazine, “Real Time”, the industry’s first electronic magazine. He has written a number of industry papers and articles over the years, and is the author of two published novels, Semblance of Balance (2002, 2014) and Snake Dancer’s Song (2004).

+1.703.444.2527 wnielsen@subtelforum.com

So the monster printer departs next month, leaving a large hole in its place. I’m thinking of creating a serenity room, or maybe a one-

In This Issue...

4

Exordium Wayne Nielsen

60

The Increasing Capacity From Ireland From A Managed Network To Neutral Carrier Model Derek Cassidy

8 10 18

Advertiser Index

72 78

State of Subsea [Follow Up]

24

How to Provide Subsea Capacity On Demand Colin Anderson

92

Back Reflection Stewart Ash

32

Africa Elevated To New Heights Mike Last

98

Advertiser’s Corner Kristian Nielsen

42

Back to the Future: Control of the Oceans and Beyond?

John Tibbles

102

Coda Kevin G. Summers

52

The Race Is On Stephen Nielsen

News Now Subsea Capacity Report SubTel Forum Research Team

30Gbaud Opto-Electronics and Raman Technologies For New Subsea Optical Communications Bertrand Clesca & Dr. Herve Fevrier

Advertiser Index Huawei Marine Systems

www.huaweimarine.com

50

State of Subsea

www.stateofsubsea.com

72

Terabit Consulting

www.terabitconsulting.com

16

WFN Strategies

www.wfnstrategies.com

70

State of Subsea

News

Now



AAE-1 Submarine Cable System, Awarded To TE SubCom, Comes Into Force



Canadian Company Pitches $600M Fibre Optic Cable Project In Arctic



ADB Says Funds For Optic Cable Approved And Ready



Changes To Internet Governance Could Challenge Businesses

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Alcatel-Lucent and Nextgen Group To Deliver Fiber-Optic Submarine Broadband Connectivity To Oil And Gas Production Facilities In North West Australia



Columbus Partners With Ocean Networks



Connecting Southeast Asia Damaged Undersea Cables Affect Internet in PH, Asia-Pacific



Dialog Axiata To Invest US $ 30mn On New Submarine Cable



Alcatel-Lucent Completes 100G Upgrade Of Apollo Undersea Cable System Linking The United States To The UK And France



Australasia Bend-Optimized Single-Mode Fibers: Not Just For The Indoors Anymore



Didon Cable Between Italy And Tunisia Makes Landfall



Bharti Expands i2i Submarine Cable With Ciena



EA Cable Firms To Upgrade Systems



BIX launches new submarine cable system





BOFINET Sees Room For Roll Out On A Wider Spread

EASSy 100 Gigabit Upgrade Egypt Eyes EGP9 Bln Investments In Submarine Cables By 2020





Broadband Speeds Back To Normal With Restoration Of Asia-Pacific Cable Network, Says PLDT

FCC Eliminates ECO Test, Easing Review of International Section 214 and Cable Landing License Applications and Affiliate Notifications



Broken Undersea Telecom Cable: Greenland Seeks Canadian Culprit



Fiber: Today and Into the Future





BT Awards Cabinet’s Caretaker Role Stalls TOT Opportunities

Global Cloud Xchange Establishes Point of Presence at 325 Hudson





Cameroon Starts Audit Of Construction Work For WACS Submarine Cable Laying

Global Cloud Xchange Plans to Build New Submarine Cable



Government Opens $30 Million Nationwide Fibre-Optic Project

News

Now



Government To Rent Out Internet Bandwidth To Indian States



NTC Extends PLDT Permit To Run PHL Terminal Of Submarine Cable System



Hexatronic Are Continuing The Copper Cable Operation In Hudiksvall And Has Been Listed For Trading On OMX First North



Okinawa To Lay Submarine Optical Cable To Its Remote Islands



Orange To Set Up Internet Service Provider In SA



Hibernia Networks Upgrades TransAtlantic Subsea Link With Ciena





Huawei Marine Successfully Delivers Over Half A Terabyte Upgrade On Existing PT Telkom 3rd Route Submarine Cable System

Pacnet and China Telecom Corporation Chongqing Collaborate to Accelerate Data Center and Cloud Development in Chongqing



Pacnet Upgrades Trans-Pacific Subsea Cable to 100G at CoreSite Los Angeles Data Center Campus



PCCW Global Is First In The World To Obtain MEF CE 2.0 And 10GE Network Certification



Phoenix Acquires Acoustic Signal with Towed Pinger Locator During Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370



ICPC Plenary 2014 - Meeting a Challenging Future



Infinera Appoints James Dolce to Board of Directors



International Forum On Protection Of Submarine Cables Takes Place In Dubai

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Japan-U.S. Cable Network and Ciena Complete 200G Trial





Level 3 and EMCALI Enhance Internet Connectivity in Colombia via New Undersea Cable

Phoenix Commences Towed Pinger Locator (TPL-25) Search For Malaysia Airlines Flight 370



Phoenix Mobilizes Personnel And Equipment To Support Multinational Search Effort For Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

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Myanmar Inks New Subsea Internet Cable Deal

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Nautical Maps No Safeguard Against Subsea Cable Breakages

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PLDT activates submarine fiber-optic cable linking Palawan to Western Visayas

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Nextgen Submarine Cable Project Could Be Worth $300m

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PLDT Rolls Out P861-M Cable Project In Palawan

News

Now



Prysmian To Further Boost Submarine Project Execution Capabilities



Qatar To Benefit From Two Major Internet Projects



SEACOM Deploys Infinera Intelligent Transport Network(TM) in Africa

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SEACOM Signs On Akamai To Boost Internet Speeds



South Sudan To Hook Into Fibre Cable



Sri Lanka Base To Maintain Undersea Cables Crossing Indian Ocean



State of Subsea Live Streaming Coverage



State of Subsea, Emerging Markets



STF Radio - Interview with Eric Handa



Submarine Cable Almanac Issue 10



Submarine Cable Operator Surfaces As Cloud Computing Host



Submarine Telecom System Reaches PR



Subsea Cable Operator Objects To FERC License For 600-kW Admiralty Inlet Tidal Project



SubTel Forum #75 Is Available



Supreme Court of Canada Weighs In On Conduct Barring Limitation



Tata Communications, Huawei and Huawei Marine Complete First 400G Long-Haul Subsea Network Field Trial



TE SubCom and SJC Consortium to Upgrade Capacity of Southeast Asia-Japan Cable System



Tele2 Russia to deploy LTE-1800 network in Crimea; submarine cable link imminent



Telkom Allots $600m For Optic Expansion



Texas Firm Wins $31M Contract To Lay Fiber-Optic Cable To Guantánamo



The Zetabyte Era



TIME Dotcom To Involve In New AsiaEurope-Middle East Submarine Cable System



Trident Confident It Will Secure Funding

By June



Xtera Yemen’s Aden To Modernise Communications

The Undersea Cable Report 2014

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Subsea Capacity Report Planned Systems by Region 30

SubTel Forum Research Team

W

elcome to SubTel Forum’s annual Subsea Capacity issue. Every May we aim to take the industry’s pulse by looking at the future of our corner of the telecoms market, specifically what system developers are planning to add to our growing lake of capacity and what technologies are being implemented. The data used in

25 20 15 10 5 0 2014 Atlan:c

Carribean

2015 Indian

Mediterranean

2016 Middle East

Pacific

Polar

ANNOUNCED DESIGN CAPACITY BY YEAR 2016

2015

2014 0 this article is obtained from the public domain and is tracked by the ever evolving SubTel Forum database, where products like the Almanac and Cable Map find their roots. It has been one year since our last look at capacity in the industry. Systems have come and gone since last May, new regions have been championed for growth and old ones have

50

100

150

seen a resurgence; while our industry changes on a regular basis, two themes remain at the center of every system: bigger and faster.

As announced systems are coming in across the wires, the SubTel Forum database team take note of each region the new systems will touch; over

200

250

the last year or so, it has become apparent that the Pacific is getting interesting again. As the demand for higher capacity, low latency systems is on the rise around the world, there are regions that still lack redundancy or even direct connections to globally connected routes; there are more than a handful of examples where a string of

300

350

islands have fiber connecting them, but are still burdened by a satellite connection to the rest of the world. Due to new systems in the Pacific, and in other areas like the example, there has been a resumed interest from these small communities to attach themselves to larger systems that come near theirs.

FIBER PAIR COUNT

6 12%

8 6%

4 44%

CONTRACT IN FORCE 2014-­‐2016

2 19%

Yes 11%

3 19%

No 89%

New systems are often under tremendous scrutiny from the submarine fiber community: “Will they find the funding?”

“Will the surveys really be accomplished?” “What’s the point of more capacity in that region?” There are more than a few pointed questions the industry would aim at system developers, so the actual information for new systems can tend to be released in drips, turning into a waterfall as they near a contract or public favor shifts against them. Of the nearly 40 systems that have been announced to be ready

for service over the next few years, only a little over half have actually announced basic capacity figures, and a hair less than that have announced their fiber pair count.

“less is more” does not apply here, as the sheer volume of wavelengths that a single fiber pair can hold is vastly higher with recent advances in terminal equipment.

Of the announced fiber information, systems seem to be following a model that utilizes end terminal equipment for high capacity, rather than packing more strands into a single system, a total departure from roughly ten years ago when a system could have nearly 20 times the current count. Curiously, the adage

For all of the talk of booming regions of development and increased capacities with lower latencies, the only real test of a system is their CIF, or contract in force date. Of the nearly 40 systems being planned around the world, only 11% are actually CIF as of this issue, a number that should give anyone pause.

As reported last issue, planned

systems are having great difficulty acquiring financing and it would seem that in highly competitive regions like the south Atlantic and Pacific, the first one to the bank wins.

How to Provide Subsea Capacity

On Demand SDN will help create more open and scalable submarine network architectures, now business models need to adapt to the new reality

Colin Anderson

O

ur world becomes more application-centric with each passing day. In our personal lives we have music on demand, books on demand, video on demand, TV on demand, and email on demand through cloud services. In the commercial world, storage on demand, software on demand (software as a service or SaaS), and computing on demand are now standard. However, this is not yet the case with telecommunications services and that is about to change.

All of our popular applications need bandwidth—and lots of it.

Social media and applications such as video on demand, audio on demand, YouTube, and others, are now the major drivers of global bandwidth consumption.

In the past, many thought that the caching of data at localized data centers would not only enable fast access to data, but would also reduce the requirement for capacity on subsea cables. It might seem logical that if data is stored locally, it only needs to be updated from time to time, with minimal bandwidth required to do so. In reality, data center synchronization and the backup of data at secondary data centers for redundancy is a major driver of domestic and international capacity growth—far above the growth spurred by the traffic from content providers to users.

TeleGeography’s Global Bandwidth Research Service noted in their April 2014 bandwidth forecast that: “...the drivers of international bandwidth demand are

changing... Private network bandwidth grew at a compounded rate of 55% annually between 2009 and 2013, while international Internet bandwidth grew 44 %. Private networks accounted for 25% of used international bandwidth in 2013, up from 20% in 2009. Given their massive capacity requirements, some of the largest content providers have moved towards owning infrastructure, as a means of lowering their costs.

Global network expansion has undergone a long-term shift in focus, from connecting users to users, to linking users to data centers and—increasingly— data centers to each other.

Data replication and mirroring among data centers are key drivers in the rapid growth of private network capacity...”

Larger content providers and social media companies have taken ownership positions in submarine cables to save costs, and there are other drivers as well.

Traditional consortia cables have always had a relatively standard set of conditions in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the various purchasers. Although many of the consortia parties are in direct

competition with each other, the MOU requires that upgrades of the cable are agreed by all parties and that the capacity is strictly shared among the parties according to their equity share (or other similar criteria).

This stifles real competition.

The agreement process for cable upgrades is slow, and results in little or no differentiation in the services offered or associated costs—leading to price wars and low margins.

Being an owner of a cable system in a more flexible consortium, with an MOU that has lesstraditional terms between the various owners, can allow each owner to upgrade its portion of the cable independently, and if desired, to utilize its own cable landing stations (CLSs).

This independence and control over upgrade decisions and physical infrastructure such as CLSs can greatly reduce the leadtime for upgrades and bring new capacity online quickly. Owners can get capacity as required in a few weeks (or, at most, months), rather than waiting for the next annual or biennial upgrade cycle of the traditional business models followed by older consortium cables.

Furthermore, this allows service differentiation and different cost structures between competitors.

However, in today’s terms, a few weeks or months is still not true capacity on demand. The emerging need is for diverse services to be available in hours or minutes—and perhaps with pre-arrangement timed to the second. The global telecom industry has embraced this need for flexibility and scale, and the subsea market is taking note.

This conversation is driven by the emergence of software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) technologies that will provide open interfaces to the network, creating more open and programmable network architectures. An open ecosystem will enable cable owners to select from a wide variety of software-driven network building blocks to build the right service offering.

Envisioning SDN for submarine systems Traditionally, the smallest portion of the submerged plant of a submarine network which could be owned and controlled by a single party was a fiber pair. While some legacy cables have as many as 8 fiber pairs, capacity per fiber pair has increased and newer cables are built with only 3 or 4 fiber pairs. A new technology—in fact, one of the building blocks

for SDN in the submarine network environment—called “spectrum partitioning” allows cable owners to access a portion of the spectrum of a single fiber pair to use as they wish, without impacting other users of spectrum on the same fiber pair. The technique is analogous to breaking the submerged plant into many smaller “sub-fiber pairs.” With this method, the assignment of bandwidth does not need to be fixed, but can be can be software-provisioned.

The underlying scale and technology to support future subsea networks with capacity on demand, bandwidth on

demand, or services on demand is essentially available today. For example, flexibility of service offering is rapidly becoming possible with the latest terminal equipment; spectrum partitioning solutions are available and proven; and soon, applications such as on-demand capacity and auto-provisioning will be available. With all of these in place, providers will be able to deliver a service much quicker.

Creating on-demand business models These technologies will also enable the implementation of

variable pricing for bandwidth capacity. In terms of revenue management and demandsensitive pricing, today’s airline industry is far ahead of the telecom industry. For example, airlines have done a good job of understanding users’ buying habits and willingness to pay for what is essentially a common resource (a trip on an airplane at a given point in time). There is no reason why the same cannot be possible in the telecommunications market.

Considering the airline industry, we can think of the submerged wet plant as the aircraft: a large

The manufacturing industry also provides models from which the telecom industry can learn and relate to on-demand service provision.

capital investment which has to be maintained and amortised over 10 or 20 years. The CLSs are the airline terminals, and the variable costs for submarine cables—submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE), electricity, air conditioning, etc.—are analogous to the jet fuel and costs of airline crew.

properly value and monetise this critically important and valuable infrastructure. Without true differentiation of service offerings, it becomes a game of “lowest price wins,” and what are in fact the arteries of the world economy are still considered by many to be “fat dumb pipes” that are difficult to make profitable.

The airline industry is a critical part of our global economic infrastructure. The submarine networks of the world are truly critical infrastructure as well, perhaps even more so than airlines. But a failing of the international subsea telecom industry is its inability to

If airlines have successfully differentiated themselves by providing rapid schedule changes to meet demand and competition, different service levels, and variable pricing in response to demand, then why can’t the telecom industry do the same?

Demand flow technology (DFT) is a manufacturing strategy that aims to deploy business processes that are driven in response to customer demand on a daily basis. DFT principles imply demand “pull”—meaning that customer demand is the central force that guides the factory’s activity. DFT is an alternative to “push” manufacturing strategies that rely on sales forecasts based on predictive data to drive the factory, which must be set farther in advance and are therefore less flexible and responsive to changes in demand. The telecom industry currently uses forecasts to drive capacity upgrades, a model that could benefit from DFT thinking in the future.

The telecom market, 2014 and onward The world is changing and so, too, is the global telecom market.

With the technology quickly aligning, the challenge becomes creating the business models that will support an on-demand pricing structure. There is much to be gained. Understanding how other sectors have responded to the shift to on-demand business will help the submarine cable

industry evolve and grow—our application-intensive future demands it.

Legacy cable owners and service providers who can adapt to the new market situation will be those that look downstream toward their customers’ business needs and provide rapid services, bandwidth and/or capacity on demand, with appropriate software provisioning, related billing, and back-office functionality. They will monetize their investment in subsea assets to the maximum and be the victors. Those who do not adapt will remain players in the “lowest price wins” game.

Colin Anderson is the Director of Business Development & Marketing, Global Submarine Systems, for Ciena

Africa Elevated To New Heights »» 7 of world’s 10 fastestgrowing economies for 2011-15 predicted to be in Africa »» Theoretical design capacity of submarine cables landing on the East and West coasts of Africa exceeds 30Tbps

Mike Last

»» Carriers and ISPs in Africa report 10 per cent month-on-month growth

T

he growing economic importance of Africa, combined with dramatic growth in demand for highcapacity bandwidth within the world’s second largest continent, are encouraging an increasing number of international carriers and telcos to expand their presence in Africa.

Historically, limited submarine and terrestrial connectivity restricted business opportunities for carriers and ISPs operating in Africa. However, over the past few years Africa’s connectivity

landscape has changed dramatically for the better.

Verde to South America and Europe.

Submarine cable deployments and upgrades A dramatic growth in deployment of new submarine cables over recent years has seen the number of cables with landing stations in Africa rise to no less than 16. At the beginning of 2009, only two international cables served sub-Saharan Africa SAT3/SAFE, connecting a number of countries across western and southern Africa; and Atlantis-2, linking Senegal and Cape

Right now, the theoretical design capacity of submarine cables landing on the East and West coasts of Africa is well over 30Tbps – an astounding figure.

Three of the more recently-deployed cables - EASSy, WACS and EIG - will all soon be upgraded to meet ongoing customer demand. The first will be the 10,000km EASSy cable, which connects nine countries from South Africa to Sudan and was originally launched as a 1.4Tbps

system in summer 2010. Initially uprated to 3.84Tbps in 2011, EASSy’s design capacity has recently been boosted to >10Tbps and when four 100Gbps wavelengths are activated on the system later this year, the system’s lit capacity will increase to almost 600Gbps.

Both EIG and WACS are also expected to be upgraded in 2015.

How is all this submarine capacity being used?

Network diversity is a ‘must have’ for carriers and ISPs operating in an increasingly competitive marketplace, where business and domestic customers now expect 24x7x365 access to highspeed international connectivity.

To support such demands, specialist capacity wholesalers such as WIOCC are increasing their capacity investments across multiple cable systems.

Before the end of this year, WIOCC will benefit from a significant increase in capacity on EASSy, with nearly 200Gbps either in use or available for its customers. In just a single year, WIOCC boosted its capacity on EIG by 200 per cent and on WACS by 500 per cent, with corresponding increases in scale to its core backhaul networks in South Africa and Europe. These investments will ensure that

WIOCC maintains the capacity and capability to serve the needs of even the most bandwidthhungry organisations.

Connectivity and the economy The availability of reliable, affordable, high-capacity international connectivity has direct and indirect impacts upon the economic fortunes of a country, which makes what is happening in Africa worth taking note of elsewhere in the world.

The Economist1 stated that for the period 2011 to 2015, seven of the world’s ten fastest growing economies in the world will be in Africa.

Meanwhile, the GSMA2 recently reported that mobile telecommunications currently contributes over six per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP - higher than any other comparable region globally - and this is forecast to rise to over eight per cent by 2020.

By 2020, mobile is set to double its economic effect, employing 6.6 million people and contributing US $42 billion to public funding, including licence fees.

The extent and longevity of this growth are evident in forecasts3 that Africa’s mobile phone market will almost quadruple in value to $234 billion between 2013 and 2020.

Delivering international connectivity inland U n s u r p r i s i n g l y, improvements to Africa’s terrestrial fibre network have not managed to keep pace with the recent advances in submarine c o n n e c t i v i t y.

However, it is important to note that significant investments are being made in new and enhanced terrestrial networks, which is helping to bring much greater access to international connectivity to many, many more people and businesses within Africa.

In 2012, the mobile ecosystem directly supported 3.3 million jobs and contributed US $21 billion to public funding in the region.

According to Hamilton 4 Research , the amount of operational fibre in Africa rose

1 ‘Africa rising’, The Economist , 3 December 2011 2 ‘Sub-Saharan Africa Mobile Economy 2013’ - http://www.gsma. com/newsroom/sub-saharan-africa-leads-world/

3 ‘The mobile telecommunications market in Africa’ - Manifest Mind LLC, 2013 4 Africa Bandwidth Maps - 2014

by 24 percent in the 12 months up to the end of March 2014 (from 438,838km in Q1 2013 to 546,006km in Q1 2014). With a further 87,035km of fibre currently under construction, 102,619km of fibre planned and an additional 47,570km of fibre proposed, terrestrial connectivity within Africa is set to continue to improve significantly.

However, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa terrestrial connectivity costs remain high, due to minimal, if any, competition.

According to a recent study by Analysis Mason5, 35 of the 48 sub-Saharan countries have no competition at all among national fibre providers, and eight have limited competition where there are only two providers.

Connecting the unconnected By seamlessly linking in excess of 40,000km of submarine cable to more than 55,000km of terrestrial fibre, WIOCC offers a unique, diversity-rich panAfrican network which provides direct international connectivity to more than 500 locations in 30 African countries.

This network is helping to bring affordable, high-capacity 5 ‘Submarine cables in Sub-Saharan Africa: terrestrial networks need to keep up’, Analysis Mason, April 2014

international connectivity to landlocked countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Burundi and Lesotho. Previously reliant upon expensive, low-capacity satellite connectivity, bandwidth prices in Lesotho fell by 67 percent when WIOCC used its unique terrestrial network to connect the kingdom to reliable high-capacity international connectivity available via submarine cable systems.

Terrestrial connectivity charges in South Africa are also falling sharply from their historically high former levels, following the construction of new and enhanced terrestrial networks.

Improved international connectivity, enhanced ICT infrastructure, more affordable high-performance handsets and prodigious growth in mobile, internet and data services are all having an effect, transforming how businesses in Africa operate and changing the way many individuals go about their daily lives.

These advances have helped improve business efficiency and productivity, opened up previously inaccessible markets, made eCommerce practical across more of Africa and led to the

formation of many new companies and even business sectors.

For individuals, greater access to mobile broadband has revolutionized how they access information, how they handle and transfer money, and also facilitated phenomenal growth in a multitude of popular Internetbased applications such as social networking, online gaming, music and video streaming.

Increasing network capacity and diversity The needs of businesses and individuals throughout Africa are driving increasing demand for the reliable, affordable, high-capacity international connectivity required to support a growing reliance upon evermore data-rich applications.

To

exploit

the

significant

business opportunities that now exist, operators and ISPs need to offer product packages that meet the reliability and increasingly bandwidth-hungry appetites of their customers.

As a result, many are looking to increase the bandwidth and quality within their service portfolios, taking advantage of the cost-efficiencies, improved reach and greater reliability now possible through investments in submarine cables and terrestrial fibre networks.

Precisely matching solutions to needs No two organizations have exactly the same connectivity requirements in terms of bandwidth, routing, traffic management, service continuity and flexibility. So, it is important to first take the time to listen carefully to prospective

customers to fully understand all their needs. Only once this stage has been completed is it possible to put together a bespoke solution which precisely meets the specific requirements of each business customer.

Delivering uncompromisingly high levels of customer service and satisfaction is a cornerstone of WIOCC’s offering. Key elements within this service offering are a team of dedicated Customer Champions based in WIOCC’s Network Operations Centre in Nairobi, from where they provide 24x7x365 service and support to their customers.

Be a part of the African success story The rise in demand for reliable, high-capacity international connectivity into, out of and within Africa is huge and growing,

Last improvements is the andMike the recent of Marketing & in Director submarine and terrestrial International Business connectivity are helping to make Development Africa an i at n cWIOCC. reasingly

prosperous and connected continent, where the potential for business growth is huge. The opportunity is now there to help bridge the digital divide and to ensure that your business is part of the African success story.

Back to the Future: Control of the Oceans and Beyond?

(A personal view from John Tibbles, 30+ years in the submarine cable world, seeing it from most angles) John Tibbles

T

he recent major investments by the main carriers in China acting en bloc, have clearly established these carriers and China as the primary investor in new subsea cable projects. No project in the North Pacific, or India Ocean Region it seems, can succeed without their investment. I do not know if there is a formal agreement to act in unison for a common good between parties who are nominally competitors internally ,however, a ‘China Inc’ arrangement is not unknown there. For example a single entity places large orders for airliners at an attractive volume discounted unit rate and then shares them out to the numerous individual airlines.

or influence over the terms of use of stations (and or PoPs, wherever a modern cable terminates) • The cost structure and terms of trade for capacity on a system as is available to smaller investors, or over any wholesale market that may develop.

These are three strategically important issues that potentially influence the telecoms market beyond just the cost of capacity in a single system.

• Cost of raw capacity, be it bandwidth or spectrum it amounts to the same thing

We have however, been here before and while now it is China Inc., back in the latter part of the last century it was the USA or more precisely the then dominant AT&T, who effectively controlled the timing , design and capability of all new builds in the Atlantic and Pacific regions. In fact, they not only exerted influence in a similar way to that described above they actually owned a system supplier and marine services entity (now Tyco SSL) and had an enormous influence over the supply, installation and lucrative maintenance contracts.

• Cost and control of access to this capacity through ownership of cable stations

Now, I am not saying that this situation is intrinsically wrong, indeed, I admire the

This has created a situation not seen for around twenty years where one party /country largely controlled the development of new communication links and in doing so gained a significant economic and competitive advantages in a number of areas including:-.

China carriers for investing in a segment of the industry that has a very chequered past with all kinds of well demonstrated financial risks . Nor am I saying that AT&T were some kind of evil empire, very often their technical expertise and commitment were the only reasons some projects actually got completed, and in a complex consortium environment a strong leader is of much value.

Indeed from a personal point of view my career lead me into both conflict and co-operation with AT&T and I had a lot of respect for them either way.

However, there is a bigger picture that can develop when one entity is so dominant in an important segment of the industry, particularly one that, because of its global and multinational nature, cannot be directly regulated but only occasionally influenced by regulation in user countries.

Among the potential problems the subsea cable capacity market, and perhaps even the supply market face from the reemergence of a dominant cable owner operator include : • Scale of investment in subsea cables usually has a very direct relationship to the

price paid for that capacity, and as a rule, the largest investor gets the lowest unit cost giving them a significant competitive advantage in many areas but above all in the wholesale space.

• Control over the system architecture including the choice and type of terminating point and its location.

• Powerful Influence on the choice of system supplier and marine maintenance • As a dominant party in the main trunk cable system they can exert strong influence through setting pricing and cost sharing mechanisms for smaller operators dependent upon system branches The strength of such influence of course is not drawn solely from the largest stake in cable systems but also from leverage over all kinds of services with a bilateral element. Back in the day AT&T was almost invariably the largest bilateral service partner everyone in the industry and retaining a good relationship with them was of great importance to almost all carriers. Today China is a very important market for all carriers

So to conclude , at least for now, I am not saying that these things will happen, but some at least have happened in the past and they lead to a very controlled market in terms of restricting new system developments, cost of capacity, radical reduction in wholesale opportunities and raising barriers to entry.

Ultimately such dominance can impact the whole of the telecoms chain from the shoreline right on down to the end user.

and may before long be indeed their largest potential external relationship I am not saying dominance is wrong, in some ways it represents strong leadership in multi owner or consortia projects and it provides a way of resolving differences of opinion , but I am pointing out some parallels with history.

After all, on one level the China carriers must be applauded for having the business acumen and courage to make what are very large investments at a time when western carriers are extremely shy of such commitments. However, any company once it has gained, at considerable cost, a competitive advantage, is always going to be tempted or pressured to use it to the maximum degree.

John Tibbles has spent over 30 years managing globally based investments in cable systems for some of the worlds major subsea network operators and owners involving strategic planning, partnerships and consortia management , buying and selling in the wholesale

space and managing supplier relationships. He has been actively involved as a panelist, presenter and member of many industry bodies including SubOptic, PTC, ICPC as well as contributing to media articles on the industry. Now retired from daily involvement he owns JTIC

consulting (www.consultjtic. com) providing consulting services for the submarine cable sector and the broader international carrier business

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The Race Is On

T

he race is on to be the first new, independent cable system in Western Australia, but ASC International’s Australian Singapore Cable now seems to hold a commanding lead.

Stephen Liddell, Board Advisor for ASC International, who had recently given a presentation on the ASC and the Australian market at AP Telecom’s State of Subsea, claims that the ASC project is charging ahead towards filling that demand.

According to Liddell, there are a few factors recently driving up demand for greater international connectivity. A major factor is the National Broadband Network (NBN).

The NBN is a 30 billion investment by the Australian government to improve the broadband coverage across Australia, which will greatly improve the comparably limited access in Western Australia.

With the greater coverage and speed on the continent itself, greater international coverage will be needed, says Liddell.

Stephen Nielsen

“The second part of that is that it’s coming into the west coast, so it’s sort of like a new trade route.” While there are a number

of cables coming into the east coast, the west coast, as Liddell puts it, “missed the bubble.”

All connectivity to the west coast of Australia has been terrestrial, and even that has been very limited.

“I think that’s the exciting thing about it,” Liddell said. “The most successful projects tend to be those where there’s a new route being opened and a new set of economics. In the case of ASC… it’s going to be the first independent cable and the first landing on the western shores of Australia with open access, carrier neutrality and, essentially, what’s called a private cable system. It’s not a consortium cable, like the SEAME-WE 3, which is the only existing cable reaching the west coast of Australia.”

Another factor is that the existing market of Australia is heavily vertically integrated, says Liddell. Telstra and Optus, two of the major Australian communications companies, each have a full range of services.

On the Telstra website, the company is described as “a leading telecommunications and information services company, offering a full

range of communications services and competing in all telecommunications markets.”

According to their website, Telstra provides 15.8 million mobile services, 7.7 million fixed voice services and 2.8 million retail fixed broadband services in Australia.

“You have these vertically integrated providers,” Liddell said. “It’s nowhere near as diverse or fragmented as you would see in, for example, Europe or the United States. The result is the bandwidth prices still remain quite high across Australia; in fact, very high by US standards. And the other key point here is the connectivity to the shores of Australia has been limited because of this vertical integration.”

Given the growing demand and the prospective demand that will come with the NBN, Liddell believes that a niche has opened for new opportunities.

“It’s about bringing a competitive submarine cable from a new provider” Liddell said. “Combined with the nextgen terrestrial (cable) in the area, it means we are able to provide a completely independent solution, which is somewhat disruptive in a market where

the traditional providers are vertically integrated.”

However, ASC International isn’t alone in the desire to be that disruptive force in Australia. Two other companies are aiming for a landing on the west coast: the Trident Subsea Cable and APX-West promoted

by SubPartners.

While neither company were open for comment, a press release from Trident claims that they have reached a critical juncture of their project and, if they secure funding for their $400 million proposal by the end of June, they will form a binding

contract with TE SubCom for the subsea construction, while Fujitsu will manage the on-land construction.

The press release does not specify what will happen if the funding is not secured by June.

According to Chief Executive Mark de Kock, the desktop studies had been completed and the project had entered the due diligence phase for debt funding. De Kock stated in the press release that should funding be confirmed, ASC International and SubPartners would most likely end their own projects since it would no longer make commercial sense to continue.

“We’ve seen less activity from the other two competitors in the marketplace over the last few months” Mark de Kock said.

“I don’t know whether they’re concerned with our rapid pace of development … but the consortium which achieves contract in force first – meaning manufacturing or construction started – would be the inflection point where, logically, you’d anticipate that whoever is not first would can their project.”

Should their funding be confirmed and contracts signed in June, they expect the complete their cable by the fourth quarter of 2015.

However, there is some question about who has the upper hand in this race.

“We’ve got all of the permitting done,” said Liddell about ASC. “We’ve got all of the marine surveys done. All of the landing stations have been constructed. We have at least 12 monthly competing projects.

Most importantly we’ve got the terrestrial fiber, which connects the Perth landing station all the way to the major capitals, including Sydney.” The existing terrestrial system that ASC will be connected to is provided by NextGen Group.

ASC International has also partnered with the Indonesian cable provider XL Axiata, the second largest cellular operator which also has its own fiber optic system across Indonesia.

There have been a number of challenges that had to be overcome to make the ASC happen. Chief among them has been permitting to run through Indonesia. These were obtained only recently, as of January.

According to Ongki Kurniawan, Director of Service Management XL, Indonesia’s traffic to the US has been heavily reliant on a single connection through Singapore, which causes problems.

“The Regulator has been seeking for an alternative route to the US for some time,” Kurniawan said, “and the award of the latest IDD license in 2007 was linked with a commitment to build an alternative route to Australia.”

It was for that reason, he believes, that the company has been awarded the permitting necessary to pass through Indonesia.

Kuniawan also believes that new connection will provide benefits both domestically and internationally.

The system should provide an increase of up to 300% of total international bandwidth servicing Indonesia.

“We’re very, very confident that there’s going to be a strong demand from Indonesia,” Liddell said.

A major difficulty for any new system, according to Liddell, is making absolutely sure the demand is present, which can be difficult to predict. “We’ve taken the bull by the horns in the sense that ASC has been working on this project, has at least a twelve month lead over the various competing projects that have been mentioned in the press and

so we’re very confident we’re going to get the thing built.”

ASC has been actively presigning customers for twelve months. While Liddell would not share a definite number, he did say that they are “very confident and very close to reaching the target number we need to ensure our investors don’t suffer undue risk in building the system and that they see a good return on their investment.”

The system will be a 36-terabyte system for a three-fiber pair cable, which is provided by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, with whom ASC International has a contract.

Stephen Nielsen is staff journalist for Submarine Telecoms Forum and is a freelance journalist in the DC Metro area.

He is a graduate of the Virginia Commonweath University School of Mass Communications and was recognized as a finalist for the Society of Professional Journalism’s Mark of Excellence Award.

The Increasing Capacity From Ireland From A Managed Network To Neutral Carrier Model

Derek Cassidy

S

ince the early 2000s there has been no real investment in submarine infrastructure between the UK and Ireland. The available capacity was always seen as been more than capable of carrying the traffic that was needed to power the communications

and Cable & Wireless/Vodafone.

All of these companies could offer a fully managed service from Ireland to anywhere in Europe and beyond. As a managed service it would be the operator who decided the routing and networks it would transverse

companies could offer capacity, on their own networks across Europe.

The other telecommunication companies could also offer the same level of communication traffic but not as a single entity managing their own network end to end. All this capacity, whether

operators offering 40Gb and the hope that the leap to offering 100Gb was just around the corner. One of the main Irish operators had introduced 100Gb channels on its network in 2013 with a quick introduction of 500Gb superchannels shortly

networks across Ireland and the links to Europe and beyond.

These links were provided by the main players in Ireland who had optical submarine cables connecting to the UK and the US, they are BT, Eircom, Level 3, Hibernia Networks, Virgin Media

however, there were only three telecommunication companies, with terminations in Ireland that could provide a single network managed solution on their own network they had a footprint that stretched far beyond the UK and into Europe. These three

it is by any of the above operators, was on a managed solution.

However the idea of dark fibre was not favoured but sometimes used, where the need required it.

afterwards, enabling the operator to offer capacity that meet the bandwidth capacity requirements that were being sought. However this higher bandwidth capability was all based upon the drive capability of the managed network which

The average channel bandwidth available was 10Gb with some

would need to keep up with the ever changing design topologies required to meet new requirements where a change has been affected where the need to have lower optical latency and higher bandwidth capability has emerged, especially with the financial institutions, and some of the existing networks could not offer this low latency model due to distance and network capability.

With the desire to increase optical bandwidths to 40Gb and 100Gb and to shorten the time between networks, or optical latency, the development and investment in new optical submarine systems has led to the commissioning of three new optical submarine cables between Ireland and the UK and the development of a project to link the west of Ireland to the USA, something that has not been done in nearly 90 years and only matched by Hibernia Atlantic from the east coast of Ireland, which also has a new link into the North of Ireland.

These new Irish Sea connections have led to an increase in available capacity across the Irish Sea and have also led to a change in the operating model that exists. This new operating model has evolved over time and is in direct contrast to the

existing models which are owner/operator and network managed systems. These new models have a leaning towards dark fibre capacity and a network carrier neutral system that offers dark fibres to network operators in a way that extends their network reach to cover a

larger international footprint.

The biggest change was the carrier neutral model where the submarine cable network operator offered the dark fibre capacity to any network operator; this was based upon a network neutral concept technically extending the Telehouse or

Neutral telepresence from a city centric model to an international model. New partnerships have developed that are promoting this Carrier Neutral Model offering capacity between leading Data Centres across Europe. This new partnership model being developed has evolved into an

alliance of operators that have the same concept and design criteria where a carrier can get from one city/Data Centre to another across Europe, without technically leaving their network or incorporating handoffs to other operators.

The METRO2C Alliance is a consortium of operators and network owners who have networks in Ireland, the UK

and Mainland Europe and have developed the Carrier Neutral Model as a way to increase capacity across Europe.

With the Addition of Sea Fibre Networks to the consortium, the reach into Ireland has been established which enables telecommunication companies to lease dark fibre and establish a European wide network without the headache of building a new network and worrying about the

large scale capital investment it brings. The capacity on offer is one that will allow the user to incorporate the whole network into their own footprint and will have the ability to offer their own capacity as wavelengths with specific bandwidth requirements to end users.

The networks using the carrier neutral model can now base their systems or engineering hubs anywhere in Europe, as

long as they are connected to the METRO2C network. The essential element is the available dark fibre that is the key to developing this type of carrier neutral network. The owner of the Irish part of the METRO2C alliance is planning a new diverse submarine link to the UK and France which will offer a selection of paths to users of the carrier neutral network allowing for a versatility of design and durability of network enabling for a better uptime This type of network design allows for an increase in capacity and allows telecommunication companies to extend their reach across Europe without having to own their own fibre network, either terrestrial or marine.

The two other submarine cables are part of a new partnership between three companies in Ireland and the UK where they offer a managed solution that covers the British Isles and also offer a dark fibre solution that is equal to the METRO2C alliance network offering.

However, it does not have the same European coverage that METRO2C offers but it has agreements with other operators to hand off capacity for onward delivery and termination.

These three submarine cables are coming to the market with a new offering and are in direct completion with the existing operators who have been operating their own submarine and terrestrial networks for well over 10 years. However there are clear differences between the network managed solution and the dark fibre solution where the managed solution allows for a user to purchase capacity as wavelengths or bandwidth and relies on the network operator to manage the communication traffic. This type of offering is cheaper that the dark fibre offering but it has the distinct disadvantage that the bandwidth available is decided by the operator and not the user while the dark fibre design, it is the user who decides the bandwidth availability and channel capacity

There is a new network also being designed that will directly connect Ireland to the US. This new cable will establish the second transatlantic cable that will terminate in Ireland delivering 100Gb channels at a low latency and with an agreed solution to get this traffic to Europe via the METRO2C network and other managed solutions via the various partnerships that are in negations at present. However this cable is a managed solution offering 100Gb across the Atlantic and its connection to the carrier neutral network will allow it to extend its reach and enable it to manage the optical channels from A to B without needing to pass the traffic to another operator.

The idea that the introduction of three new submarine cables, between Ireland and the UK, has opened up the market due to the

Derek Cassidy is from Dublin, Ireland. He has worked for 21 years in the telecommunications industry of which 19 years have been spent dealing with optical terrestrial systems and submarine networks. He works for BT in their Networks and Optical Engineering division. He is Chairman of the Irish Communications Research Group, a voluntary organisation dedicated to the promotion, protection and research of Irelands communication heritage. He is a Chartered Engineer with the IET is also a member of the IEEE and Engineers Ireland, and has Degrees in Physics/Optical Engineering, Structural/Mechanical

new operating model that gives the user more control over their network capacity without the infrastructural costs, will lead to more competition between operators. It has the clear advantage of allowing smaller telecommunication companies to extend their communication footprint. However it does come with a disadvantage is that the managed solution offers a better design where the capacity is managed and all operations and maintenance needed to maintain the higher efficiency are born by the network operators who manages the network and the user. This is in clear contrast to the carrier neutral model where the user is required to maintain their own electronic equipment and institute operational and maintenance procedures to make sure that the efficiency of their traffic is equal to the managed solution offering.

Engineering and Engineering Design and has Masters Degrees in Structural, Mechanical, Forensic Engineering and Optical Engineering. He is currently researching his Thesis into Communication History of Ireland.

But no matter how you view the two offerings, network managed or neutral carrier, that are in place today they both give the user a choice, the increase in available capacity is leading to an increase in development technologies that will enable network operators to deploy 100Gb channels and superchannels across their networks. There was a time when capacity was scarce but now the market is opening up and capacity has never been in a situation where a user has the ability to decide on what type of operating model it wants to pursue, so that it can deliver its traffic across Europe.

.com

Telecoms consulting of submarine cable systems for regional and trans-oceanic applications

State of Subsea

[Follow Up]

stateofsubsea.com

On April 1st, AP Telecom held their second panel entitled State of Subsea (SOS) at the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. This marketing event was the second in a series of similar panels showcasing the work being done internationally by AP Telecom as well as examining important issues for the industry.

S

peakers included representatives from more than 12 companies with topics covering emerging markets, future prospects and more.

The first speaker, however, was representing something quite different: Cambodian Ambassador Hem Heng. He gave a keynote speech touching on the growth of his countries markets and the hand EZComm has had in it.

“It is evident that success would not be possible without a strong communications sector,” says Heng. “Today EZ Comm is not just instrumental in advancing the communications sector in Cambodia,” but that it puts his country on the international map in the communications industry.

The following speakers covered many more topics. First was Steve Liddell, ASC Board Advisor spoke on the Australian Singapore Cable and the reasons that it has become important.

Eric Handa of AP Telecom took the stage next to talk of emerging markets in Africa and Southeast Asia. Next was a panel titled “The Future of Content Distribution and Infrastructure.”

It was moderated by Sean

Bergin of AP Telecom. The four panelists included Alex Vaxmonsky, Director of Global Networks Equinix, Kent Bressie, Partner at the Law Firm Wiltshire & Grannis LLP, Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber and Tim Stonge, VP of Research at TeleGeography.

2015. It was again moderated

by Sean Bergin. Panelists this time around include Steve Liddell, ASC Board Advisor, Tom Soja Vice, President at Ocean Specialists, Inc, and Jorge Porto, Director of Sales for Latin America for TE Submarine Communications LLC.

Hunter Newby returned to the stage to speak about the US domestic fiber infrastructure.

The second panel and last event of the day addressed the potential growth market in

According to Eric Handa, CEO of AP Telecom, response to the event has been very good. Like the first SOS in New York City, the event was streamed live, opening the audience up to

include international viewers.

“The feedback from the Asian side was pretty positive. A lot of the folks in that part of the world had dialed into the live streaming,” Handa said. Even more had watched it after the fact, since the entire event was made available for download on the SOS website.

“They (viewers) were definitely pleased with the technology,” Handa said.

According to Handa, there were more than

130 live views during the event.

The number of downloads of the event after the fact is nearing 250 after four weeks.

“I think the metrics and the performance overall for our second State of Subsea event was better than what we did for the inaugural one,” Handa said.

“We made some significant progress.”

But, Handa agrees, the SOS is an ongoing project, which is still being improved upon. “I think we’re learning along the way some of the tricks of the trade of event organization and event management.”

The next State of Subsea will be held on October 1st, 2014, in Bangkok, Thailand. Handa explains that they already have plans for improvement over the

last SOS. “We have a punch-list of items, 45 – 50 items that we’re looking to improve upon.” Some of these include uniformity details like where speakers enter the stage and other details that would improve uniformity and overall quality of the production.

touch-points: the in person, the live streaming, and then the archived version.” For the Thailand event, the SOS will continue to be available for free viewing around the world live, as well as afterwards as a downloadable recording.

One thing that will definitely not change, said Handa, is the steaming technology. “We’re fortunate that we get the three

“For this next event we’re going to improve the level of speakers even more,” Handa said.

30Gbaud Opto-Electronics and Raman Technologies

For New Subsea Optical Communications

Bertrand Clesca & Dr. Herve Fevrier

F

ueled by the traffic explosion driven by developments in video and internet, the demand for bandwidth has become insatiable. As illustrated by Figure 1, the rate of traffic growth has been doubling approximately every 18 months since 2000, a trend which is predicted, by several different sources, to continue at least for the next several years.

To satisfy this sustained demand, 100G channel rate with digital coherent detection – enabled by 30Gbaud opto-electronics – emerged around 2011. With a 10fold capacity increase over 10G technology, excellent capacity and reach performance and significant price erosion to come, 100G is the dominant line rate today with a bright future for the next years.

Figure 2 shows the global revenues for 10G, 40G, 100G and 100G+ DWDM line cards as a function of time. Since 2014, 100G has become the predominant channel rate while the 40G channel rate is continuously decreasing and remains below 10G line card revenues.

Historically, the first deployments of 100G technology happened in highcapacity terrestrial backbone networks and were driven by the constrained line capacity offered by 10G technology (typically 80 x 10G, i.e. a total of 800 Gbit/s per fiber pair). 100G technology was simultaneously deployed in the existing optical transmission infrastructure of developed countries [1] and in new networks of emerging countries [2, 3].

The Xtera Communications strategy is, and has always been, to maximize both spectral efficiency and spectrum width without compromising on the reach performance, regardless of fiber type or vintage. The foundation of this strategy relies on the Wise RamanTM amplification solution and 30Gbaud opto-electronics [4].

Combining a 100 nm wide spectrum and 400G channels built on a 16QAM modulation format, both technologies being field proven, leads to a capacity of 64 Tbit/s per fiber pair over a reach that exceeds 1,500 km in terrestrial network conditions.

But… what about submarine communications? What does this technical evolution in terrestrial networks mean to technologies for submarine cable systems?

Figure 1: Data traffic as a function of time showing traffic doubling approximately every 18 months.

Figure 2: History and forecast for 10G, 40G, 100G and 100+G DWDM line card revenues (After Ovum).

How are the different subsea market segments (unrepeatered, upgrades of existing repeatered links, new builds of repeatered links) impacted?

Unrepeatered Market Segment & 100G First Applications Shortly after its advent in terrestrial network, the 100G channel rate was used in new unrepeatered subsea cable systems where the optical fiber could be selected for optimizing both the linear attenuation and the effective area. Recent deployments of new cable systems, like the one of Tamares Telecom in 2012 between Israel and Cyprus (Figure 3), allow the reach of very high end-oflife capacity such as 7 Tbit/s per

fiber pair, even on distances as long as 350 km. This capacity figure is achieved with only active transmission equipment at each end of the cable system (no active equipment under water).

Figure 3: Commercial 350 km unrepeatered subsea cable system with 70 x 100G design capacity per fiber pair.

Subsea unrepeatered fiber infrastructures that were deployed more than 10 years ago are also capable of being upgraded to 100G. A very good example is the ARCOS ring in the Caribbean that was put in service in 2001: the 22 unrepeatered segments of this subsea network are now capable of multi-terabit capacity per fiber pair even on the longest unrepeatered legs (up to 380 km).

Pushing the Envelope Studies focusing on furthering the reach and capacity of unrepeatered links did not stop with the commercial achievements mentioned above.

Recent demonstrations with commercially-available Xtera’s transmission products and Corning’s line fibers have set the bar at an impressively high level.

These Capacity – Reach performance levels are achieved by the combination of 100G and

Raman optical technologies.

amplification

In a first step, the maximum unrepeatered transmission for very high cross-sectional capacity was assessed. With

only the line fiber inside the cable, 150 x 100G channels were transmitted over an unrepeatered cable length of 334 km. Using Remote Optically Pumped Amplifiers (ROPAs) in the cable, the same line capacity of 15 Tbit/s was transported over an unrepeatered cable length of 390 km. A ROPA is a passive optical sub-system that is typically placed 100 km ahead of the receive end and requires no remote electrical power feeding from the cable end.

In a second step, Xtera carried out more investigations to assess the maximal transmission distance for a few 100G channels.

Recently published results [5] using latest generation ultralow loss fiber and advanced architecture for ROPAs have made significant steps forward, enabling an impressive increase in reach performance: four 100G channels were transmitted over 523 km and one 100G channel over 557 km. The single-channel demonstration leads to the significant combination of 100G channel bridging a loss of 90 dB.

Table 1: Results of recent unrepeatered transmission demonstrations by Xtera with Corning’s fibers.

(ROPA: Remote Optically Pumped Amplifier).

Table 1 summarizes the results of these recent unrepeatered transmission demonstrations.

Repeatered Upgrade Market Segment & 100G First Applications The first commercial deployment of 100G technology on existing repeatered submarine cable systems happened in the Mediterranean Sea in the first quarter of 2012. A dark fiber pair was illuminated with 100G channels between Alexandria, Egypt and Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, Italy. It is remarkable that for this type of regional network combining land and subsea sections (as depicted in Figure 4), the very same equipment (including the same 100G interface cards) is deployed for the terrestrial backhaul networks and the

designed to last for at least 25 years. Before the upgrade concept was generalized, some of them were phased out due to their old terminal equipment technology as their operation expenses were high with respect to the offered capacity.

Upgrades with 100G breathe new life into existing cable systems – even very old ones – and significantly expand their operational lifetime. Continued effort to improve transmission technologies is happening at the interface card level to increase further total capacity per fiber pair and maximize the value of subsea cable assets.

Figure 4: First commercial deployment of 100G technology on existing repeatered submarine cable systems. submarine link. Common spare units, training and management system considerably simplify the operation of such networks.

Upgrades are Possible on the Different Generations of Submarine Cable Systems Since the first deployment in 2012, the 100G upgrades of existing repeatered cable systems gained a lot of momentum. 100G upgrades have been executed for the different generations of

cable systems with obviously differences in the resulting total capacity per fiber pair. Taking a look at the first generation optically amplified cable systems that were originally designed for single-channel operation with one 2.5 or 5G wavelength, applying 100G and Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technologies at the terminal level allows an up to 100-fold capacity increase. This has been made possible using a combination of advanced modulation schemes, coherent technology, soft-decision forward error correction, and further digital signal processing.

Subsea cable systems are

Repeatered New Builds Market Segment & 100G Evolution of Line Card Technology In the past few years, technologies for submarine line terminal equipment have experienced tremendous

progress with the channel rate evolving from 10G to 20G, then 40G and, today, 100G. Figure 5 illustrates the technical evolution of 100G channel cards with respect to the different types of repeatered subsea cable systems by length (regional, transatlantic and transpacific). For regional cable systems (typically up to 3,000 km), terrestrial 100G channel cards relying on Polarization Multiplexing – Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (PM-QPSK) modulation format can be used. For transatlantic cable systems (typically up to 7,000 km), an improved variant of terrestrial 100G channel cards, with the introduction of Shaped Interleaved Return to Zero (SIRZ) modulation, was developed to enhance Figure 5: Evolution of line card technology for 100G and beyond 100G channel rate to address regional, transatlantic and transpacific applications.

differentiators that are accessible by using Raman amplification technology in a repeater are: •

•

reach performance. For longer applications (like transpacific cable systems with transmission distances up to 11,000 km), further improvements are brought along the lines listed on the right hand of Figure 5, with the objective to offer a flexible 100G and beyond line card suitable for both long-haul terrestrial and subsea networks.

Raman Amplification for Innovation Under Water With the introduction of 100G channel rate in terrestrial networks, Raman optical amplification benefits (excellent noise performance, reduction

of nonlinearities inside the line fiber) became clear and more needed than ever to efficiently enable long-haul optical networking with both high capacity and a minimal number of regeneration sites. As a result, Raman optical amplification is becoming ever more common in terrestrial backbones.

Regarding new builds of submarine cable systems, no significant technology progress had been made for at least 10 years at the wet plant level. To unleash the potential of new terminal technologies and access the wide spectrum offered by silica line fiber, one had to

Figure 6: Raman optical amplification going under water. significantly improve the wet plant in order to enable more sophisticated technologies (like super channels and 16QAM) and offer higher capacity per fiber pair.

The major innovation in the wet plant in the past years is the introduction of Raman optical amplification. An article about the development and introduction of Raman-based repeaters was published in May 2013 issue of Submarine Telecoms Forum [6]. The key

The Raman effect can be used to create optical gain in the line fiber, thus attaining a noise figure that is inherently lower than that of a traditional Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA); The Raman amplification can also be utilized to create gain outside the fixed window provided by classical EDFA amplifiers.

The former opens the gate to increasing the inter-repeater spans for some specific applications, while the latter can be used to widen the useable optical bandwidth in a system.

Examples of Submarine New Builds Given the maturity of the technology and the cost per 10G equivalent, all new builds are designed and implemented today with 100G channel rate.

Furthermore, 100G and coherent detection simplifies the line design and maintenance with a unique type of line fiber all along the cable because chromatic dispersion management inside the cable is no longer needed.

On the repeater side, Raman amplification is a future proof

technology that has been already demonstrated to maximize reach performances for higher channel rates, new modulation formats (e.g. 16QAM) and super channel approach. The better noise performance offered by Raman-based repeaters is an opportunity to increase the inter-repeater spacing for some specific applications like “thin” routes where connectivity matters more than capacity.

The enhanced spectral characteristics of Raman amplification offers the potential for widening the useable optical spectrum beyond 50 nm and offer higher capacity on fat routes like across the Atlantic Ocean or between Asia and Europe. Raman-based repeaters allow the building of new systems with, e.g., a capacity of 90 Tbit/s on six fiber pairs on busy routes.

Conclusion 100G channel rate, based on 30Gbaud opto-electronics, is the new 10G in the sense that it is expected to have a long lifetime because of the excellent Cost – Capacity – Reach tradeoff it offers.

30Gbaud optoelectronics technology leads not only to PM-QPSK modulation format as used in standard 100G channel implementation but

also to 16QAM format for 400G channels and higher-rate super channels. At the same time, and in a way similar to what can be observed in terrestrial networks, Raman optical amplification is an instrumental technology to build efficient and high-performance 100G and beyond subsea cable systems.

Introducing Raman-based repeaters is also a key technical enabler for the convergence between terrestrial and submarine; common spectrum for dry and wet parts of the networks avoids capacity bottlenecks at the demarcation points. 30Gbaud opto-electronics and Raman amplification technologies offer the possibility to unify terrestrial and submarine links in order to build end-to-end, PoP-to-PoP connectivity.

ROADMs and OTN switches, implemented inside cable landing stations and PoPs, respectively, in addition to the associated control plane, are becoming crucial equipment to build a global network with high resiliency against multiple faults.

Bertrand Clesca is Head of Global Marketing for Xtera and is based in Paris, France.

Bertrand has over twenty five years of experience in the optical telecommunications industry, having held a number of research, engineering, marketing and sales positions in both small and large organizations.

Bertrand holds an MSC in Physics and Optical Engineering from Ecole Superieure d’Optique, Orsay (France), an MSC in Telecommunications from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s , Paris (France), and an MBA from Sciences Politiques, Paris (France).

Dr. Herve Fevrier joined Xtera in 2000 and serves as the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer.

He provides the strategic leadership that leads to the acquisition of new customers, development of new products, partnerships with vendors, and developers of complementary technologies.

Dr. Fevrier received his doctoral degree in Physics from the University of Paris and he holds a Physics engineering degree from the Ecole Centrale de Paris.

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Images courtesy of Atlantic-Cable.com

Back Reflection Coaxial Commonwealth Cables On the 25th September 1956, the first telephone call across the Atlantic was made, between London, New York and Ottawa, over a submarine cable. TAT-1 comprised two coaxial cables containing unidirectional, valve amplifiers designed by Bell Labs. These amplifiers were housed in flexible units that could be integrated into the cable structure and pass through existing cable laying machinery. They were capable of delivering 36 x 4kHz voice circuits. Each voice circuit being the equivalent of 25 telegraph circuits. All the cable was armoured; 7,739km was made at Submarine Cable Ltd (SCL)’s Ocean Works factory in Erith, Kent, UK, especially built for the project.

616km were manufactured at the Simplex Wire and Cable Co, in New Hampshire, USA. Due to the success of TAT-1, in May 1957, officials from the UK

and Canadian Governments met in Montreal and agreed in principle to lay a transatlantic telephone cable between their two countries. This agreement was formalized, in February 1958, with the announcement of the CANTAT project. This cable was to incorporate the latest British engineering developments and deliver 80 x 4kHz circuits over a single cable.

In June 1958, a Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference was held in London. The main agenda item was how to extend telephonic connectivity around the Commonwealth. The conference recommended that the CANTAT concept should be extended to develop a round-the world network of large capacity cable systems.

The eastern routing suggested was UK, South Africa, East Africa, Colombo (with spurs to Karachi and Bombay) on to Penang (with a spur to Chittagong) and finally

by Stewart Ash to Australia. The western route would comprise CANTAT, microwave across Canada to Vancouver and then by submarine cable to Australia and New Zealand.

In 1959, the Australian Government invited Commonwealth countries to a conference in Sydney, where it was agreed that, on completion of CANTAT, a new system called COMPAC would be laid across the Pacific from Vancouver to Australia and New Zealand. The eastern route was dealt a severe blow when, on 31st May 1961, the Union of South Africa declared itself a republic, outside the Commonwealth and withdrew from the project. As a result, nine representatives of Commonwealth countries met in Kuala Lumpa, hosted by the Government of the Federation of Malaya, to discuss a coaxial cable to connect Australia to South East Asia, to be called SEACOM. It was agreed that the project would be jointly funded

by the UK, Canada, Australia, the Federation of Malaya, Hong Kong and Singapore. In 1962, these six countries reconvened in Kuala Lumpa where they agreed their respective contributions and the final routing, which included a landing in Guam to be obtained by the Australians.

With TAT-1 in mind, the British Post Office (BPO) and Cable & Wireless Ltd had launched a joint research project with SCL and Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd (STC), in 1952, into cable and repeater design. The research team was led by the BPO’s Director of Research, Reg Halsey, at their Dollis Hill laboratories. This joint team came up with some major technical innovations.

Firstly, in parallel with Bell Labs flexible repeater development, the British developed a rigid repeater housing which could be jointed in line with the cable. Within the

housing, there was room for band pass filters which allowed bi— directional transmission over a single cable. This design had been available for TAT-1 but because of the difficulty of laying the housing and by-passing the cable machinery it was not adopted. The solution was a by-pass rope attached to the cable in front and behind the repeater. The by-pass rope passed through the cable machinery and the repeater was carried passed on a trolley. Once this technique had been proved, it remained the method for deploying repeaters until the introduction of the Linear Cable Engine (LCE) in 1971.

CS Mercury Loading SEACOM at SCL Greenwich on 23rd August 1965

Perhaps the greatest innovation was the development of Lightweight (LW) cable. Up to this point, the strength of the cable had always been provided by external armor wires. The LW coaxial cable had a high tensile steel core overlaid with a copper conductor, a dielectric of polyethylene, an aluminum outer conductor, finally a higher density polyethylene out sheath to provide abrasion protection. The overall diameter was just less than one inch (0.990”).

It was believed that supporting the weight of the repeater, in a LW catenary, would cause excess strain on the cable or cause cable runaway. A method was needed to relieve this additional strain. The answer was to attach parachutes to the repeaters when they were deployed, the theory being that the parachute would open in the

water column and bear some of the weight of the repeater during its descent to the seabed. Successful trials were completed in Loch Fyne in 1960, and parachutes were used on all British manufactured repeaters, deployed in deep water, until the introduction of a new, stronger, one and a half inch (1.47”)

cable design in 1968; after which time the practice was abandoned.

In order to accomplish the installation and to maintain the Commonwealth Cables, , a number of new cable ships, purpose built for handling rigid repeaters and LW coaxial cables, were built by

Cable & Wireless: •

C S Retriever 5; 4,000 tons; launched 1961

•

C S Mercury; 8,962 tons; launched 1962 C S Cable Enterprise; 4,085 tons; launched 1964

•

Some facts systems:

about

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CANTAT: Oban, Scotland – Corner Brook, Newfoundland 3,864km. Cable manufactured by SCL (Greenwich and Erith) and STC (Southampton).

Repeaters manufactured by SCL (Greenwich) and STC (North Woolwich).

Repeater spacing 48.23km; initial system capacity 60 x 4kHz voice channels, upgraded to 80 x 3kHz voice channels. Cable ships used; CS Monarch 4 (from 1971 CS Sentinel); C S Ariel and C S Albert J Myer. The system was inaugurated

by HRH Queen Elizabeth II on 19th December 1961. Project cost £9M. COMPAC: Comprised five segments: Vancouver – Port Alberni 150.28km; Port Alberni – Keawaula Bay, Oahu 4,723.59km; Keawaula

Bay – Suva, Fiji 5,701.34km; Suva – Auckland, New Zealand 2,337.68km; Auckland – Sydney, Australia 2,361.80km. Cable and repeaters manufactured by SCL and STC. Repeater spacing 48.23km; initial system capacity 80 x 3kHz voice channels, upgraded to 82 x 3kHz voice channels. Cable ships used; CS Monarch 4; C S Mercury and CS Retriever 5. The system was inaugurated by HRH Queen Elizabeth II on 2nd December 1963.

Project cost £28M. It was described at the time as the world’s largest telecommunication project.

SEACOM: Comprised five segments and was installed in two phases.

Phase 1: Katong, Singapore – Kota Kinabalu, Malaya 1,608.55km; Kota Kinabalu – Deep Water Bay, Hong Kong 2,044.54km;

Deep Water Bay – Tumon Bay, Guam 3,916.54km.

Cable and repeaters manufactured by SCL and STC. Repeater spacing 48.23km; initial system capacity 80 x 3kHz voice channels, upgraded to 82 x 3kHz voice channels. Cable ships used; CS Monarch 4; C S Mercury, CS Retriever 5 and CS Recorder 3.

Phase 1 was opened to the public on 31st March 1963.

Phase 2: Cairns, Australia – Madang, Papua New Guinea 2,994.45km; Madang – Tumon Bay 2,580.72km. Cable and repeaters manufactured by SCL and STC. Repeater spacing 48.23km; initial system capacity 160 x 3kHz voice channels, upgraded to 166 x 3kHz voice channels.

Cable ships used CS Monarch 4 and C S Mercury. The entire SECOM network was formally inaugurated

by HRH Queen Elizabeth II on 31st March 1967. Project cost £24M. A capacity of 166 voice circuits is infinitesimal when compared with today’s Terabit systems; however, 50 years ago it was leading edge technology. The Commonwealth Cables revolutionized the design of deep water cable, repeater housings and the cable ships that laid and repaired them.

CS Cable Enterprise Built to Maintain the Commonwealth Cables

Stewart Ash’s career in the Submarine Cables industry spans more than 40 years, he has held senior management positions with STC Submarine Cables (now Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks), Cable & Wireless Marine and Global Marine Systems Limited.

While with GMSL he was, for 5 years, Chairman of the UJ Consortium.

Since 2005 he has been a consultant, working independently and an in association with leading industry consultants Pioneer Consulting, Red Penguin Associates, Walker Newman and WFN Strategies, providing commercial and technical support to clients in the Telecoms and Oil & Gas sectors.

Reader, I would like to welcome you to the newest addition to the STF Magazine, a place where advertisers and marketing staff can easily timely information regarding upcoming STF products. In this new feature, we will be announcing upcoming products, their download statistics and reach, as well as any relevant deadlines. Our intention is to better inform our sponsors and supporters of new products and ad visibility rates; we hope that this will be a useful tool for you when selecting you marketing budgets.

Over the next few months, SubTel Forum has three releases scheduled: SubTel Forum Magazine Issue #77 – Regional Systems

Submarine Cable Almanac Issue #11

Type: Bi-monthly publication, roughly 70 pages an issue.

Release Date: July 21, 2014 Average Downloads: 78,000

Type: Quarterly publication Release Date: August 18, 2014 Average Downloads: ~485,000 per issue, 2,000,000 annually

In this Issue: News and opinion pertaining to regions of development and growth in the submarine cable space around the world. A wrap up of planned systems, newly commissioned systems and any planned systems that have been abandoned will be included.

In this Issue: The Submarine Cable Almanac gives a detailed report of international submarine cables in the world, information ranges from length, cost, and capacity to fiber information, landing points, cable supplier and installer. This is SubTel Forum’s single most downloaded product.

Price: $2,500-5,000

Price: $5,000

More Information

More Information

Submarine Cable Industry Report Issue #3 Type: Annual publication Release Date: September 15, 2014 Average Downloads: 65,000 In this Issue: A relatively new product to the STF line up, the Industry Report has quickly become one of the most available industry reviews around. Working with Terabit Consulting, this 50page analysis of the submarine cable industry focuses on regions of growth, new technologies on the horizon and new players in the industry.

Price: $5,000

More Information As you are working on your marketing budgets over the next few months, remember that SubTel Forum has unparalleled visibility and reach in the submarine telecoms cable industry.

For more information about any of the products listed, please contact me. Thanks!

Kristian Nielsen has been with Submarine Telecoms Forum for a little over 6 years, he is the originator of many products such as the Submarine Cable Map, STF Today Live Video Stream, and the STF Cable Database. In 2013 Kristian was appointed Vice President and is now responsible for the vision, over-all direction and sales of Submarine Telecoms Forum. +1 703.444.0845 knielsen@subtelforum.com

Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. 21495 Ridgetop Circle, Suite 201 Sterling, Virginia 20166, USA ISSN No. 1948-3031

Conferences State of Subsea 1 October 2014 Bangkok, Thailand Website

PUBLISHER: Wayne Nielsen MANAGING EDITOR: Kevin G. Summers CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS: Colin Anderson, Stewart Ash, Derek Cassidy, Bertrand Clesca, Dr. Herve Fevrier, Mike Last, Stephen Nielsen, John Tibbles Contributions are welcomed.

Please forward to the Managing Editor at editor@subtelforum.com.

Submarine Telecoms Forum magazine is published bimonthly

by Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc., and is an independent commercial publication, serving as a freely accessible forum for professionals in industries connected with submarine optical fiber technologies and techniques.

Submarine Telecoms Forum may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the permission of the publishers.

Liability: while every care is taken in preparation of this publication, the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information herein, or any errors which may occur in advertising or editorial content, or any consequence arising from any errors or omissions, and the editor reserves the right to edit any advertising or editorial material submitted for publication.

Copyright © 2014 Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc.

January:

Global Outlook March:

Finance & Legal May:

Subsea Capacity July:

Regional Systems September:

Offshore Energy November:

System Upgrades

PTC 2015 18-21 January 2015 Honolulu, Hawaii USA Website

I just spent the last three weeks wishing I could tap into the Speed Force that powers the superhero known as The Flash. If I could, I might have had a bit more time for sleep reading books and grooming.

As it stands now, at noon on the Friday before this issue is released, I’m thinking seriously about taking a nap.

The reason why is fairly obvious, in the past three weeks we’ve launched a new interface for the magazine and the Submarine Cable Almanac. The flipping page effect has been something we’ve long discussed in the offices of SubTel Forum, and now seemed like the right time to make it happen.

As you are probably aware, you didn’t have to download anything in order to make the interface work. It uses html5 and flash, which are probably built into your browser unless you’re running some ancient version of Internet

Explorer. Wayne tells me that people still use IE, but since I’m a Mac guy, I’ll just have to take his word for it.

This new interface has a number of useful features, including a bookmark feature, social sharing buttons, and my favorite, a table of contents button.

And the best, if you still want a PDF of the magazine or the Almanac, just click the Acrobat button and you can download it. Just be sure to check the button for spreads so everything will look correct.

Getting all of this setup was quite

an undertaking. As with any new technology, there is a certain amount of learning curve. This particular rollout also required us to change some of our designs,

in 2004 while everyone else is a decade ahead of you.

That’s it for another issue. As always, thanks for reading.

Kevin G. Summers is the Editor of Submarine Telecoms Forum and has been supporting the submarine fibre optic cable industry in various roles since 2007. Outside of the office, he is a professional author whose works include ISOLATION WARD 4, THE BELL CURSE and LEGENDARIUM. +1.703.468.0554 editor@subtelforum.com

and as far as I’m concerned, that is a good thing. It’s far too easy to become stagnant in your look, and before you know it, you’re stuck

Voice

of the Industry