SubTel Forum Issue #77 - Regional Systems

Regional Systems Edition

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I

f it’s July it must be Tour de France time… And yes, World Cup, as well as SubTel Forum’s Regional Systems issue!

will make the finish line over the next six months; those in the peloton, or worse in the back, may never go ahead.

This year’s Tour has thus far been a world of surprises. Many of the big names have been knocked out early due to accidents and bad luck. A particular day on mud-covered cobblestones decimated the peloton. Newer, younger riders have a shot at leading the early stages, and the final wearer of the maillot jaune in Paris is still in question. It will be a Tour to remember.

Tracking their movements, large or small, is a new face at SubTel Forum.

Kieran Clark joined o u r merry band last year as Analyst and since then has been quietly probing and obtaining information on current, Out-of-Service and planned systems around the globe. This issue marks his first foray into divining and

Mid-way through our work year a number of planned systems are still in doubt. Names that have been touted for a couple of years or so are still bogged down with finance issues or bad luck.

Only a few systems have left the proverbial peloton and are in the select group of leaders in un échappé; a fewer number still

explaining to us what he sees in the market for planned regional systems. It is an imperfect art at best; so it will be interesting to

So, sit back, relax and enjoy the competition; and as always, save me a spot at the arrivée.

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

see how things develop over the coming months.

In This Issue...

4

Exordium Wayne Nielsen

66

Too Many Plans & Too Few Cables John Hibbard

8 10 18

Advertiser Index

76

Beware The Ides of March: Subsea Cable Cut Trend Continues Doug Madory

Regional Systems: An Overview Kieran Clark

88

Back Reflection Stewart Ash

28

Challenges Facing Legacy Operators: The Rise of the Neo-Carrier and the role of Submarine Cables?

John Tibbles

94

Advertiser’s Corner Kristian Nielsen

98

Coda Kevin G. Summers

News Now

38

The State of Planned Systems STF Research Team

54

Recovery and Reuse Of Underwater Optical Fibre Cables Dr. Frank Donaghy

Advertiser Index OFS

www.ofsoptics.com

24

Telecom Egypt

http://te.eg/

26

Terabit Consulting

www.terabitconsulting.com

16

WFN Strategies

www.wfnstrategies.com

86

News

Now

 A Trans-Pacific Cable Hurrah  AAG Submarine Cable Cut Slows Down Internet Connectivity



Angola Cables and DE-CIX Announce Long-Term Strategic Partnership for African Continent

 Cameroon And Brazil Soon To Be

Connected By 5,900 Km Fibre-Optic Cable

 Cameroon To Develop Operating Procedures For Submarine Cable Usage

 China Unicom Invests HK$3 BN To Build Global Center

 Complex Cable-Laying To Bring

Fibre Broadband To Isles Of Scilly

 CSCAP Memorandum No. 24

Recognizes The Critical Importance Of Rapid Repair Of International Submarine Cables

 Equinix’s Sydney Datacentre Picked

For Hawaiki Trans-Pacific Submarine Cable

 FCC Reforms Rules and Policies

on Foreign Carrier Entry Into U.S. Telecommunications Market

 Fugro Acquires Geofor To Strengthen Its Market Position In Africa

 Fugro Proteus – The First Of A New Series Of Coastal Survey Vessels

 GBIS Network Extends To Datamena  Global Cloud Xchange Announces

Plan For New Subsea Cable Between Mumbai And Singapore

 GlobeNet Signs Agreement With

Allied Fiber Following Ready For Service Announcement Of Southeast Florida Segment

 Google Considers Investment in

Subsea Cable in Oregon and Japan

 Google Should Look Beyond Second Submarine Cable

 Guinea Inaugurates ACE Landing Station In Conakry

News

Now

 India Government plans to Establish

 Padtec Submarine Network

 Internet Bandwidth Prices Fall 25-

 PCCW Global Carries Live Coverage

Mainland to Island Subsea Link

30% In Last Two Years

 IslaLink Deploys Infinera Intelligent

Repeaters Pass Installation Tests

Of The 2014 World Cup From Brazil To Hong Kong For TVB Viewers

Transport Network for Submarine Routes in Spain

 PLDT Completes P600-Million Bohol

 NextDC’s Perth SubPartners Has

 PLDT Pursues Int’l Landing Station

 Nigeria In Data Centre Expansion

 PLDT To Spend $2M For Asia-

 NTT Communications To Lay

 RCOM’s Submarine Unit GCX To

 Orange Will Co-Finance The

 REANNZ Signs On To Hawaiki’s

Signed A Deal With NextDC

Quest Amid Broadband Constraints

Optical Undersea Cable To Cambodia

Construction Of Sea-Me-We 5, A Very High-Speed Submarine Cable Connecting France And Singapore

 Orange, DRC Govt Sign Fibre Optic Deal

 Pacnet Owners Said to Seek $1

Billion Valuation in Revived Sale

Fiber Cable Project

In Visayas

America Gateway Cable Upgrade

Raise $250 Million Through Overseas Bond Issue

Trans-Pacific Cable

 Report On Telecom Connectivity In

Andaman & Nicobar By September

 Second Cable a Must for New Zealand, Says Internet Party

 SubPartners Gets Sydney Protection Zone Permit For APX-East

News

Now

 SubPartners Secures Cable for APXWest Build

 Supreme Court Of Canada Expands Scope Of “Wilful Misconduct” Marine Exclusion

 Swaraj To Take Bangladesh’s Internet With Her

 Tata Communications Limited

Announces Its Intention To Deregister In The United States Under The Securities Exchange Act Of 1934

 Tata Eyes Subsea’s 400G Future  TE Connectivity Closes Acquiring SEACON

 Tele Greenland Mulls Cable

Extension After Wireless Outage

 Telecom Cabling Eyed For Ocean Surveillance

 Undersea Cables Set To Monitor Earthquakes And Tsunamis

 UNE EPM Telecomunicaciones And Alcatel-Lucent Deploy Colombia’s First 100G Ultra-Broadband Backbone Network

 Vocus Buys Submarine Cable Capacity From Telecom NZ

 Vocus Picks Up Stake In Major Submarine Cable Network

 Xtera Awarded Contract to Build New Subsea Cable System

The Undersea Cable Report 2014

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Regional Systems An Overview

Kieran Clark

W

elcome to SubTel Forum’s annual Regional Systems issue. This month, we’ll take a brief look at system progress around the world, and talk a little bit about some of the challenges the submarine telecoms industry faces. The data used in 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.

In our last Regional Systems edition, 19 systems were set to be ready for service in 2014, 29 systems in 2015, and 6 systems in 2016. One year later, those numbers have dropped to 8 systems in 2014, and 20 systems in 2015, with a slight bump in 2016 to 11 systems. Based on the data, our observation is that some systems have been delayed a year, while others have died outright. Overall, there has been an almost thirty percent decrease in systems under development since our last edition.

SYSTEMS ANNOUNCED RFS 35 30 25 20 2013

15

2014

10 5 0 2013

Of the systems scheduled to be ready for service in 2014, four have already been put in to service. Two have either started, or will soon start, their marine surveys. Another has started manufacturing cable, and the final system due to be ready for service this year has already begun installation.

Looking to 2015, only two systems have started, or will

2014

2015

soon start their marine survey, while the remaining 18 systems are still in the pre-engineering phase.

Naturally, with a reduction in the number of systems under development, we can expect a decrease in the total kilometers of cable being added; taking into account the decline in systems ready for service

2016

in 2014, there is an obvious correlation between systems RFS and kilometers of fiber being added around the world.

At this time last year, roughly 146,000 km of cable were set to be ready for service in 2014.

As a result of several systems no longer under development, that number was cut by just over 50,000 km.

Delayed systems cut that number even

more, resulting in the length of new cable being added in 2014 totaling just under 36,000 km. Overall, 2014 has seen a decrease of a little over 100,000 km of proposed cable since last year’s issue. While 2015 does not see quite as drastic a change just yet, there has already been a reduction of around 50,000 km of proposed cable since last year’s issue.

As shown to the right, the majority of new activity seems

to be centered on the Pacific, ostensibly fueled by emerging markets in Southeast Asia.

However, it does appear that the string of defunct systems is more or less across the board and not focused on any one specific region. This global trend indicates a global predicament, and not one localized on any one specific region. Some regions have suffered more than others, however.

Systems Announced RFS 2014-2016 Systems Announced RFS 2014-2016 ByBy Region Region 0% 0% 2% 2% 4% 4% 4% 4% 9% 9%

Medi Medi

11% 11%

Pacific Pacific

15% 15%

Indian Indian Ocean Ocean Carribean Carribean Bal2c Bal2c 55% 55%

250,000 200,000 150,000 2013 100,000

2014

50,000 -­‐ 2014

2015

Mid East Mid East Polar Polar

ANNOUNCED KMS ADDED BY YEAR

2013

Atlan2c Atlan2c

2016

Since our last look at Regional Systems, the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean regions saw a slight increase in new system activity, but nearly every other region saw a decrease. The Atlantic and Polar regions have suffered the most, with systems in the Atlantic dropping almost by half from 13 to 7, and the Polar region losing two systems with only one proposed system remaining. Even the Pacific region, which has seen a surge of activity in recent years, saw a 24% decrease in systems from this time last year.

There are various reasons for this downward trend, some of which include: investors becoming increasingly more cautious, oversaturated regions or routes, and the continued focus on upgrading existing system. It can be difficult for cable developers to justify the cost of a new system to investors when faced with stiff competition in already saturated regions; regions like the North Atlantic and portions of the Pacific have already established lanes of capacity, making a new system impractical from a business standpoint.

Existing still command the greatest threat to new systems by holding the

“upgrade” card in their hand; business cases for new systems that hinge upon a need for more capacity in a region can be stalled or made obsolete by an existing cable owner doubling their capacity with an upgrade at a fraction of the price of a new system.

Kieran Clark is an Analyst for Submarine Telecoms Forum.

He joined the company in 2013 as a Broadcast Technician to provide support for live event video streaming.

In 2014, Kieran was promoted to Analyst and is currently responsible for the research and maintenance that supports the SubTel Forum

International Submarine Cable Database; his analysis is featured in almost the entire array of SubTel Forum publications. He has 4+ years of live production experience and has worked alongside some of the premier organizations in video web streaming.

Overall, we can see the industry slimming down and learning how to adapt to today’s market.

Interest in new systems continue to shift to the Pacific, while upgrades are the name of the game in most other regions. It’s an interesting time, perhaps filled with a healthy dose of

apprehension, but the industry marches on, continuing to connect the world.

Challenges Facing Legacy Operators: The Rise of the Neo-Carrier and the role of Submarine Cables?

John Tibbles

Signs of Change In recent weeks there have been some signs that the carrier world is likely to face its biggest change and shake up since the era of deregulation. In a recent post on his blog Neil Tagare, who is never shy of writing what many do not want to hear, wrote

on his blog that carriers should be very scared at the Facebook/ WhatsApp news because it has the potential to shift a huge number of revenue generating communications off of carrier networks and onto the Facebook network, he is right but this is

not the only challenge the legacy operators face.

Why are Submarine Cables Relevant?

Blog Postings from a high ranking Telia Sonera executive and the news about Facebook’s acquisition of Whats App and its potential to supplant voice and SMS messaging underline that change is already well

Personally, I have developed the view that carriers should have similar concerns about what is happening in the submarine cable element of their global networks, at least in the Atlantic region where carriers show no

established. Major data centre operators like Zayo and Equinix already have domestic and regional networks that rival those of mid range carriers and of course Google have for some years been building out networks they control.

appetite for further investment in cable systems and thereby look to cede control of this key element in global internet infrastructure to others. That has to a degree already happened because most Atlantic cables are not controlled by major carriers

but fortunately for them they are not controlled by entities that want to or could harm carriers either.

However while the Atlantic network look quite static on the surface is it realistic that with the constant growth in demand continuing at extra ordinary

rates this transport requirement can be managed with aging to old infrastructure. In addition perhaps the largest global cable system operator–TATA seems to want to exit the wholesale business. As a wholesale operator TATA wanted good

relationships with major carriers because they were customers but there are parties out there who have completely conflicting priories.

For brevities sake these parties, which to my mind include Google, Facebook and the very large Data Centre and domestic data operators , can be called Neo carriers because ether have the potential to reinvent the carrier business for the 21st Century to be built around their network assets.

thrived because these were the vehicles of communication thirty odd years ago. They grew to establish nationwide end user networks (as the phone company) large domestic trunk networks and usually shared the cost of international capacity

well there were private venture cable systems but they were almost uniformly unsuccessful financially and many were bought my other operators at low costs in order to sell capacity as a wholesaler to the carriers their only customers. What is worse

So how can this happen and how can it be a threat to the established carrier giants like ATT, Verizon and the large European legacy carriers and how can submarine cable systems play a part.

The Rise of the Neo Carrier The business model for these Neo Carriers is not homogenous but they do have similar characteristics , they need to transport data between very large nodes rapidly and resiliently and as that data carries IP, SMS, Voice , Carrier Grade LAN and all kinds of specialised customised data applications they have the same basic function as traditional carriers.

The traditional carriers come from a world of voice, fax and private lines and they

as consortium cable owners.

The domestic and international trunk networks focussed on carrier owned PoPs or a few carrier neutral facilities that were usually located quite close to clusters of PoPs to serve them easily As we know too

is that in addition to the change in competitive advantage on the supply side all these changes directly impact carrier revenues as voice and SMS disappear into a big bundle of IP transit, wholesale revenues vanish and the major data users, traditional

ones like the banks and airlines and newer ones , so called Big Data, buy integrated packages of services and transport from the neo carrier segment.

The New Network Geography For some time legacy carriers business models have been linked to their network ownership and its value ;some with mobile some without By 2014 things have changed – large data centres have grown up in many developed countries and these are often interconnected with high capacity often dark fibre based networks and they are often located away from city centres to avoid high property and operating costs –they interwork with each other but also interconnect with carriers and crucially large data users with direct fibre links.

These large users, the neo carriers, now find that their equipments for capacity are now of the same order or greater than their original suppliers the carriers and deregulation allows them get even better capacity deals on international links than many carriers because higher volumes equals lower unit costs.

This change in levels of demand and thus unit cost between what was once supplier and customer has another impact.

The Neo carriers no longer need or want capacity to be delivered via a carrier owned PoP-why can’t it be delivered directly to their nodes in some huge data centre. Data centres on this scale are bigger than traditional carrier PoPs and are wholly dedicated to the transport and interconnection of high speed data links complete with NOCs and network management facilities. Since they also have links to very large data users in commerce or government they are also directly connected to the high end of the traditional carrier customer base.

As regards subsea cables the carriers have allowed the Atlantic networks to drift along, lulled by cheap upgrades made possible by advantages in optical transmission and not seeing any strategic benefit in the network.

However sooner or later there will be a crisis or demand will finally outgrow supply and when that happens –or before if a small group Neo carriers decide they no longer want to work with an aging infrastructure

and interconnection architecture optimised for the 1990s. When that happens the traditional carriers may wake up and

realise that their once single greatest asset, the scale and reach of their networks is no longer relevant because the Neo carriers have re engineered things to connect to their data centres and indeed all their

traditionally large customers can now interconnect directly there too. What’s left? Well a lot of legacy voice business with no value and a huge sprawling local delivery network serving mostly low volume and low value households and small businesses? Added to that a recent study shows that much more than half of data in the US domestic market is moved on fixed not mobile networks and yet legacy operators have invested vast sums in the mobile sector.

West vs Strategies

East.

Different

What is interesting is that it seems that established carriers in different parts of the world are reacting very differently to these changes. US and European or Atlantic carriers have seemingly decided to let the international segment of the network fall into the hands of others.

It seems the Atlantic legacy operators are looking to move into OTT and entertainment services to replace revenues lost to the neo carriers, a dramatic move way away from their traditional skill sets. Billions have been spent on mobile networks and so called ‘triple play’ broadband products. In the UK few could have envisaged BT spending £1bn to buy TV rights for a football tournament.

Individually these ventures appear sensible, they are moving closer to customers and diversifying from dependence on declining traditional revenues. But, by relinquishing influence on global and trunk transport networks they will soon be paying more for transport than their once large customers. Can they survive and prosper away from the world they have known for

decades as traditional sources of revenue disappear?

Can legacy and neo carriers really offer global corporations secure robust networks when much of the international transport is provided by aging infrastructure owned by small niche providers with limited financial resources?

In Asia Pacific it seems the opposite is true where legacy carriers like CT, KT, NTT, SingTel etc have all recently invested huge sums in new subsea cable systems which of course are optimised for their needs in terms of interconnection preserving their financial and commercial competitive advantage. They it seems have decided that to continue to prosper they must continue to control the international network as much as they can and use it to their strategic advantage. Do the Asian giants have the right

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

answer by investing so heavily in modern networks that they will retain the competitive network advantages of lowest cost and presence forcing any new neo-carrier in their region into continued dependence on carrier services? Perhaps they can evolve into a hybrid Neo carrier role, preserving traditional revenues, or at least controlling the rate of substitution and filling the role of data centre provider themselves excluding new entrants and protecting their market by defence not diversification.

network pyramid but the strategy adopted towards them illustrates much of what is going on below.

Conclusion Two quite different approaches to a common challenge and the attitude to submarine cable investment demonstrate the fundamental difference in approach very clearly. Cables may be at the very top of the

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

The State of Planned Systems

To bring you, our loyal readers, the most current and accurate snapshot of the submarine cable industry, the research team at SubTel Forum has pulled together a brand new segment highlighting planned systems, their owners, and their production status as of July 2014. We compiled a list of over 20 different publicly announced private owners and consortiums, approached them all individually and asked that they give us some insight into their system and what the industry can expect to see in the next 6 – 12 months.

In the following article you will read about 6 different systems, their current development status, ranging from pre-engineering and surveys to installation and commissioning, as well as their short term production goals in their own words.

STF Research Team

ARCTIC FIBRE

Prudhoe Bay

Cambridge Bay

Cork Highbridge

Seattle Ajigaura

6-12 Month Plan: “Arctic Fibre is an Asia-North America-Europe system that facilitates both international connectivity and connectivity to remote communities in the Arctic. The scale of the project is such that the system will be built over two and a half years from beginning to end.

Project Completion Phases: Pre-Engineering Survey (Arctic 2014, International 2015) System Manufacture (Q3-Q4 2014) System Installation (Q2-Q3 2015) Commissioning & Acceptance (Arctic Q4 2015, Full Q4 2016)

The next 12 months represent a very exciting time for the project as it completes a number of important milestones. During that time Arctic Fibre will have completed a significant segment of the marine survey in the Arctic and have begun wet plant construction in the Arctic.

The Arctic is the first segment that will be put into service with the international following within a year from its completion.”

Mike Cunningham Chief Operating Officer, Arctic Fibre

London

FIBRE ATLANTIC

Paris

New York

6-12 Month Plan: Project Completion Phases: Pre-Engineering Survey System Manufacture System Installation Commissioning & Acceptance

“The main focus for the next twelve months will be on approaching as many key stakeholders as possible, to whom the North Atlantic is of utmost importance. Concurrently, we are establishing strategic partnerships, specifically on the European mainland and the US east coast.”

Hubert Souisa CEO, SemanticNet BV

ICN2

6-12 Month Plan: “Interchange Limited is currently working on “ICN2” to north Port Vila, Vanuatu to Honiara, Solomon Islands to Port Moresby, PNG. Also developing “ICN3” to the South. Port Vila to Tanna to Noumea / Lifou [early stages of development].”

Simon Fletcher CEO and Managing Director, Interchange

Port Moresby

Honiara Port Vila

Project Completion Phases: Pre-Engineering Survey (Q3 2014) System Manufacture (Q4 2014) System Installation (Q3 2015) Commissioning & Acceptance (Q4 2015)

SAPL

6-12 Month Plan: “South America Pacific Link (SAPL) is a new build submarine cable system connecting Oahu, Hawaii to Balboa, Panama (Phase I) with future connections via strategically located Branching Units connecting Hilo, Hawaii and Santiago, Chile (Phase II). In addition, Branching Units will also be positioned off of (Manta, Ecuador), (Lima, Peru) and (Arica, Chile) for future connectivity.

The SAPL system will fill a requirement for the emerging markets of South America and provide connectivity to the Asia Pacific region, Australia and New Zealand via Hawaii. Hawaii is a midPacific hub or gateway for many submarine cable systems, SAPL will provide a direct, low latency trans-Pacific route and open a previously untapped market to/from South America (including Brazil) and the Caribbean region.”

Hawaii

Scott J. Schwertfager Founder / CEO, Ocean Networks

Manta

Project Completion Phases: Pre-Engineering Survey (Q2 2015) System Manufacture (Q3-Q4 2015) System Installation (Q1-Q2 2016) Commissioning & Acceptance (Q2 2016)

SOLOMON ISLAND TO THE WORLD

Noro

Auki Honiara

6-12 Month Plan:

Project Completion Phases: Pre-Engineering Survey System Manufacture System Installation Commissioning & Acceptance

Sydney

“SOCC is still finalising financing and procurement for our network, which will provide international connectivity to Honiara in Guadalcanal and domestic unrepeatered submarine links from Honiara to Auki in Malaita Province and Noro in Western Province. We anticipate financial close and CIF in January 2015.”

Robin Russell CEO, Solomons Oceanic Cable Company

TRIDENT

6-12 Month Plan: “In collaboration with experienced, world-class partners, Trident Subsea Cable will deliver a new high-capacity cable system connecting Australia, Indonesia and Singapore by the end of 2015.

The Trident network will directly link the resources-rich Pilbara region in Western Australia’s North West to its capital city, Perth, and international destinations. As such, the project has essentially two major components of construction: the international submarine segment linking Perth, the Pilbara (via Onslow), Jakarta and Singapore; and the Australian domestic segment linking major locations across the Pilbara including Onslow, Karratha (together with a new data centre) and Port Hedland.

Jakarta

Trident has been overwhelmed by the great demand from Australian and international telecommunications operators and internet service providers. The company is partnering with leading, experienced suppliers to facilitate the seamless delivery of customised communications solutions.

Onslow

Project Completion Phases: Pre-Engineering Survey System Manufacture System Installation Commissioning & Acceptance

Perth

At this point in time, all major design work has been completed; suppliers for every aspect of the project have been identified, documented and locked in; sub-contractors have been identified and engaged; and the Fujitsu expert project delivery team is in place.

Over the next 6-12 months, Trident is focused on achieving Contract-In-Force (CIF) by the end of July 2014. Achieving CIF status will activate the construction of the landing sites, manufacturing of the Trident subsea cable in the factory and scheduled deployment of the cable ships.”

Chui Lin Chong Marketing and Communications Manager, Trident Subsea Cable

s ubmar in e c a b l e

ALMANAC

Did you know we had

505,286

downloads of our last almanac?

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INFORMATION

Recovery and Reuse Of Underwater Optical Fibre Cables

Dr. Frank Donaghy

T

his note discusses the ongoing reliability of recycled optical fibre cables in the Pacific. These are intercontinental cables which typically entered service in the early nineties and which have been switched off due to high ongoing maintenance costs relative to their original capacity, which by today’s standards is low.

These early cables are capable of recovery and redeployment in new locations such as island populations whose capacity needs are relatively modest, and can be met by the original fibres with modern repeaters and transmission equipment.

The cables will consequently remain in service beyond their expected design life, raising questions about their ageing characteristics and particularly the fibre integrity over the extended service life.

Ageing of Cables Cables from this era were designed conservatively, using well established materials such as steel, copper, polyethylene and other high purity plastics which were known to be capable of remaining chemically and mechanically stable for very long periods, i.e. hundreds of years. The only new materials involved, the optical fibres

themselves, were the subject of intense investigation by multiple researchers around the world during the eighties, and their mechanical and ageing characteristics were also well understood by the time they were introduced into transoceanic cables around the end of that decade.

Twenty years later the success of this conservative approach is

apparent from the exceptional reliability exhibited by the many thousands of cable kilometres which were commissioned around the world at that time.

No significant inherent defects or unforeseen ageing mechanisms have been uncovered, and in particular hundreds of thousands of fibre kilometres have remained intact.

A number of researchers have

set out to characterise actual ageing in detail, retesting properties such as handleability, strippability, strength, fatigue, bend loss etc. in fibre recovered from field cables. None of the publications found refers directly to underwater cables but generally cover more environmentally exposed applications such as buried and overhead cables [1.2,3]. Other publications exist describing

laboratory accelerated ageing tests for fibre, which in general appear to exaggerate actual ageing conditions, [4].

Underwater cables generally

show remarkably little signs of ageing, as the underwater environment is extremely benign, particularly at depths where the oxygen content of the

water is low or zero. The fibres are exceptionally well protected, being hermetically sealed by a copper tube at the centre of the cable.

In all cases no significant changes in properties of the fibre have been reported, particularly in the strength and fatigue characteristics.

There is therefore no inherent limitation to ongoing service of recovered cable, provided no external damage or degradation has occurred during its time in

operation, and provided the original design lifetime of the fibres allows for the extended period.

External Effects • External damage which is not assessed or removed.

Surface damage due to abrasion by rocks, anchors etc. is a possible threat but can largely be alleviated by inspection, preferably during recovery as reusable cable passes into the ship’s tanks.

Additional tests can include insulation resistance where facilities exist, backed up by recent power-feed voltage records from when the cable was in service.

• Transmission changes in the fibres which escape detection.

Fibres are known to be vulnerable to molecular hydrogen ingress and natural radiation e.g. gamma rays, both of which can cause rogue lattice sites comprising H or OH radicals within the glass core. In sufficient quantity these sites can cause transmission losses, but affected cables would be easily identified by transmission tests, and such changes would be generally well known and documented while the cables are still in service.

Fibre Lifetime Optical fibres which are deployed with any mechanical stress, particularly linear tensile stress or bending, are generally agreed to have limited mechanical lifetime due to the phenomenon of fatigue, or delayed failure under a steady load. The mechanism by which fracture occurs is well understood and the early cables were designed conservatively in this respect also. The subject of fibre strength and fatigue is a complex one and the important and relevant aspects of it are listed below. In summary, it will be seen that the risk of a fibre failure in extended service is not significantly greater in recycled cable than it was for the original purchasers, and it can even be argued that enhanced confidence in the long-term survival of the fibres can be derived from the cable recovery process.

The important facts are as follows: • When new, optical fibre is immensely strong, capable of surviving strain (elongation) levels as high as 5%. The average breaking strength is about 5kg (or 50N) for a single conventional fibre.

• Although fibres do exhibit fatigue, they can theoretically survive typical service strains, usually <0.5%, for literally thousands of years.

• The picture is complicated by defects which may be present at discrete points on the fibre surface, caused by contaminating particles in the 2000°C furnace

when the fibres were being manufactured. These defects are microscopic in size and cannot be found by surface examination.

They are capable of weakening the fibre catastrophically. Their frequency of occurrence is not well known and varies from one supplier to another and from one manufacturing run to another. However

it is generally believed that significant defects are typically several km apart.

• Critical defects are removed from all new fibre by prooftesting i.e. the fibre is made to break at the weak points and then re-spliced. Theoretical and statistical estimations made by many authors in the 80s and 90s concluded that a safety factor of 3 to 4 between the applied proof strain and the subsequent typical service strain was sufficient to guarantee long term survival i.e. 50 - 100 years at least. Submarine grade fibres were proof tested at 1.5% strain.

• Almost all the fibre in operating cables is almost fully relaxed due to slack inherent in the cable designs and in the cable lay. Even at suspensions or sharp bends the maximum fibre strain

is unlikely to exceed 0.2% 0.3%, and the affected length is unlikely to contain a critical defect in any case. This safety margin translates to hundreds of years operating lifetime. In addition as the fibres are fully protected from moisture and abrasion while in the cable, the only defects which can threaten their survival are pre-existing ones i.e. ones which were present originally and were small enough to survive the original proof test. In this sense the risk of failure inherited by the new cable owners is not significantly different from that faced by the original owners.

• The high proof test margins employed against fibre breakage are actually intended t o allow repair operations to be carried out without significant risk of fibre breakage during cable r e c o v e r y.

Te m p o r a r y fibre strains of 0.5% or more are expected as the cable is being pulled up from the ocean floor. This is the maximum

strain envisaged for the fibres during their operating lifetime and considerably exceeds the strains which occur during laying and subsequent operation.

It can be deduced from the above that the process of recovering cable for re-use in itself provides valuable reassurance about its suitability for further service over many years. Firstly, the design models predict that very few or zero fibre breaks should occur during the recovery. If this occurs, it not only vindicates the design model but also provides an assurance that no new critical defects which escaped the original proof test or manufacturing processes have arisen.

The cable recovery can therefore be regarded as a second, in situ, proof test of the fibre, an assurance which was not available to the original purchasers.

Conclusion These observations are general in nature and do not consider specific cables, designs or post-installation events. However, from the viewpoint of integrity

and functionality, cable reuse and extended operation do not appear to present any fundamental reliability hazards and can be recommended in principle.

Frank Donaghy is a Physics graduate of the Queen’s University of Belfast. He holds also a Master’s degree in optoelectronics, also from Queen’s, and obtained his Ph.D. in optical fibre fabrication and fatigue from the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1982. After 10 years in fibre manufacturing technology development with AWA, he entered the submarine systems business with Australia’s OTC, now Telstra, in 1987.

In 1992 he joined Alcatel TCC, a new submarine

cable system supplier based at Port Botany in Sydney, as Technical Manager. Dr Donaghy left Alcatel after ten years when the Australian operation closed down, and continued his work in the cable systems field as a consultant, then as Reliability Manager at Finisar, who manufacture fibre-based wavelength selective switches (WSS) in Sydney. Dr Donaghy retired from Finisar in 2011, but continues to assist the company on reliability issues on a part-time basis.

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Too Many Plans

& Too Few Cables

John Hibbard

There are many significant cable projects being planned for the Pacific region. In fact there are too many...

Asia-Pacific is seeing a major increase in the number of plans for submarines cables. I deliberately use the word “plans” because only a very few have so far been converted to actual implementation projects.

Whether you talk about the South, Central or North Pacific, or South East Asia, it is much the same. So why this sudden boost on plans for new cables and why the challenge to convert them to real projects?

Demand Recent Telegeography statistics have the global growth percentage for international capacity demand now at the mid-thirties. While this has edged down from over 50% a decade ago, it is still a very healthy growth. Even with the development of better caching techniques, the demand for international connectivity is still searching for the extra cable capacity to service it. Much of this need for capacity has been satisfied by upgrading existing cables. With the transition from 10G to 40G to 100G waves, the effective rate of fill of cables (ie the proportion of lit capacity to design capacity) has remained fairly static.

In Asia Pacific it varies from cable to cable but it is not often above 25%. So why this urge to pursue new cables?

South Pacific The South Pacific has seen a number of new cables implemented over recent times including the

Tonga Cable (Tonga-Fiji) and the Interchange Cable (Vanuatu-Fiji).

The driver for these cables was that it was their first cable for the country enabling a higher capacity, lower priced alternative to the historical satellite connectivity.

Other island communities such as the Solomons are also pursuing their first cable. With demand growths of 200+% within the first months of operation, it shows what abundant cheaper capacity can do

for these smaller economies and for the happiness of people of these emerging nations.

For more than a decade the principal artery from the South Pacific to the world has been the Southern Cross Cable (Australia/NZ-USA).

Its capacity has been periodically increased deferring the time when a new cable is needed. With so much concentration on Southern Cross, there is a plausible business

case for one new cable. Pacific Fibre tried and failed. Now there are Hawaiki and Sub-Partners’ APX East cables vying to convert their plans to a physical connection.

While there is a good basis for one cable, it is hard to justify two. And while there are two in the mix, it is difficult to get enough firm presales commitments from customers who desire to know the winner before placing their bets. As such building the case to get the funding

is the real challenge. So we watch with interest to see what will cause one or other to happen.

Australia – South East Asia If having two cables being planned across the Pacific is a problem, imagine the challenge off the west coast of Australia where there are three systems aspiring to build between Perth and Indonesia/ Singapore. There are the ASC system from Nextgen, the Trident system and the APX West system.

The only existing cable is the limited capacity SEA-ME-WE 3 installed in 2000 so there is an overwhelming case for one new cable. But just as in the Pacific, potential buyers are unwilling to commit with the firm pre-sales agreements to satisfy the banking institutions. Many do not want to waste their time in negotiating a deal with a loser. So again we all wait for something to trigger one of them being able to proceed.

Central Pacific For some years, I have been concerned about the concentration of traffic through the Luzon Strait.

Currently there are around 5 Tbps of traffic through there representing close to 100% of the demand from the ASEAN countries to the Pacific.

I worry about a major interruption -- but oh how many times have I been told either there won’t be another 2006 or 2009 disaster, or that their cable has been laid in secure

route -- but is it wise to have such a concentration? At last we are seeing cables planned for the routing through the Mindanao Strait. But where there has been none before, there are now plans for two. There is the BEST cable owned by investors from Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. Its route goes from Brunei to Guam with landings/ spurs at points in each of the owners’ territories. There is also the SEA-

US cable which runs from Sulawesi in Indonesia and Davao in the Philippines via Guam and Hawaii to the USA west coast. Here is a new direct, shortest route connection from Indonesia bypassing the heavily trafficked South China Sea. Disappointingly neither of these cables connect back to Singapore or Peninsular Malaysia so the scope to use them for diverting traffic from the Luzon Strait is very limited.

Realistically if there was a good bypass of the Luzon Strait, no astute operator would take less than 10% of their traffic by that route as their reputation would be severely damaged if there was a major break and they had not employed adequate available diversity in their network. And 10% of what goes through the Luzon Strait is a great revenue source for a business case.

knowing that their agreement will become null and void if a cable is not built. One concern here is they can need multiple deposits (typically 10%); the other is that if two cables are actually built based on pre-sales agreements like theirs, then they have a commitment to purchase double the capacity they need. Hence the motivation is to make pre-sales agreements conditional.

North Pacific At least two cables are being planned across the North Pacific (plus the Arctic Fibre cable via the North West Passage.

There is the FASTER cable, a system from Japan/Korea to the US west coast, intended to provide the most direct route. There has been limited publicity about this cable other than the fact that Google is one significant parties involved in the planning.

Almost in parallel with FASTER is the NCP (New Cross Pacific) cable from China to US west coast. This

cable is primarily being developed by the Chinese carriers and as yet does not seem to have a American partner for the US landing.

And only recently is the suggestion of a Microsoft owned/inspired cable which may introduce the fragmentation of demand.

Unlike the above multiple cable developments, the impediment with converting plans to reality fpr these cables appears not to be due to a splitting of the demand.

In fact the two cables seem surprisingly independent with FASTER still finalising partnership arrangements while NCP clearly will the demand from China but needs to get the US landing arrangements sorted.

Multiple Cables In each of these cases, there are multiple plans for cables along fairly similar routes. But as yet none of these cables have come to fruition. A major factor is the ability to secure funding while the customer base is fragmented.

Potential buyers who do commit do so with such qualification that the agreement is not really “bankable”.

Of course they could commit firmly to each of the parallel cables

The question that is commonly asked is why don’t they get together and that would solve the customer problem. In some cases, it might be concerns about the chemistry between the personalities. In other cases, it might be marrying the product sets or marrying the structural arrangements.

But probably the overwhelming reason is concern about who will be boss of any merged activity. Getting to where the system is at present has involved tremendous drive on the part of the developers and hence approaching another cable party is perceived as weakness and potentially a path to being the secondary party in any combined activity. So no one wants to open the door till they see themselves in a position of strength, and that really having the customers committed.

But if they had that, they would need to merge. So meanwhile, pending someone being bold, the projects wallow consuming cash as no one can garner the necessary chips to win the game.

At this stage it turns into a war of attrition, as each one waits either for the other to get tired, or run out of cash or alternatively, hopefully to persuade a major customer to commit to get the cable over the line. Or maybe someone decides to be bold and take the risk.

Of course whoever gets first over the line to CIF, then many of the customers-in-waiting will flock to it and the other runner(s) will

likely be dead at least for a number of years. Here is a case where boldness could be rewarded.

This is not to say that you can’t get two cables occurring simultaneously on a similar route but the challenge of doing so is great, particularly in persuading risk-averse banks to part with their cash.

Conclusion There are many significant cable projects being planned for the Pacific region. In fact there are too many and that is a major reason why very few are coming to fruition.

They are each handicapping the other in achieving the requisite pre-sales to satisfy the funders.

We are no longer in the era when getting monopoly carriers together to cooperate is the norm, rather the

competitive environment creates a spirit of individualism which is the principal reason that the contracts for systems are not coming into force. In the end, something has to give, but in the meantime, those with existing cables can sell upgraded capacity to a bandwidth hungry market.

John is CEO of Hibbard Consulting Pty Ltd specializing in international telecommunications leveraging off his experience as MD Global Wholesale where he led a team which grew Telstra´s international business to over $1 Billion. John specializes in international connectivity and carrier commercial arrangements including. submarine cables utilizing his experience as founding Chairman of the Australia Japan Cable.

Beware The Ides of March: Subsea Cable Cut Trend Continues

Doug Madory

I

n March, the International Cable Protection Committee, a submarine cable advisory group, held their annual plenary in Dubai. One question that they could have considered is: Why do so many submarine cables get cut in the February/March timeframe?

In this article, we’ll look back at the last three years and the submarine cable industry’s own version of March Madness.

2012 Two years ago in February 2012, we saw a rash of closely-timed submarine cable cuts, causing Internet disruptions extending into March. In one incident, three cables were simultaneously severed in the Red Sea on February 17th, and then a fourth was damaged on the 25th off

the coast of Kenya. The fourth cable was the TEAMS (The East African Marine System) cable systems, which runs from Mombasa to Fujairah, UAE. We detailed the impact of the TEAMS cable break here, noting the resilience of many East African providers, who had purchased redundant capacity on the other two East African submarine cables: EASSy and SEACOM. The TEAMS cable would experience a second cut just weeks after it was repaired, which led TEAMS to threaten a lawsuit against the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) over the repeated damage caused by ships passing through its jurisdiction.

We also detailed the loss and subsequent return of Sea-Me-We

3 (one of those cut in the Red Sea on the 17th) on Omantel‘s service, where we stated that the “new EPEG terrestrial cable through Russia and Iran cannot come fast enough for Oman”. But then the Sea-Me-We 4 outage in March the following year seemed to trigger the early activation of the EPEG cable, a system designed to provide service throughout the Middle East via Iran.

2013 In March of 2013, we observed a rash of submarine cable cuts culminating in a bizarre incident on March 27th in which the Egyptian Navy claimed to have caught three scuba divers off the coast of Alexandria trying to blow up a submarine cable with explosives. According to the article in the Guardian, the Egyptian Navy “had no explanation of who they were working for, where they came from or why they would want to disrupt Egypt’s internet communications.”

That same morning, Sea-MeWe 4 suffered a break, which we detailed in a blog post here.

This cable break, combined with breaks just days prior, led to severe international connectivity problems from East

Africa to the Middle East and South Asia, where Pakistan was already reeling from the loss of the IMEWE on March 8th. The story of the Egyptian divers ultimately disappeared from the news forever and has never been fully explained.

Only days prior, on March 22nd, an oil tanker (B ELEPHANT) commanded by Captain Syed Irfan Haq, a Pakistani national, dropped anchor off the coast of Egypt and severed both the EIG and TE-North submarine cables.

Last month, Captain Syed was convicted of negligence in an Egyptian court and received a suspended prison sentence.

2014 So that brief recap brings us to this year. While there have been a few cable stories in the past month, none have been nearly as sensational as scuba-diving saboteurs getting pulled out of the Mediterranean. Regardless, here’s a run-down of some of the submarine cable outages of this past March.

APCN-2 At 20:29 UTC on March 23rd, east Asian submarine cable APCN2 suffered an outage, causing

increased latencies around East Asia. Eastern Telecom of the Philippines was hit especially hard, as can be seen in the latency charts below.

FLAG-Falcon The week prior, the Middle East submarine cable FLAGFALCON suffered a break on the same day its parent company, Global Cloud Xchange, which recently changed its name from Reliance Communications.

This cable disruption kept the company from providing

Internet transit for several of its customers in the Middle East for about 30 hours.

From routing, we can see the impact on customers such as YemenNet (AS12486) and Bahraini incumbent Batelco (AS5416).

From a latency standpoint, we can see impacts on Gulfnet Kuwait and Kanar Telecom of Sudan.

EASSy The East SYstem

Africa Submarine (EASSy) also

experienced a cut on 13 March impacted Vodafone Tanzania, which had to shift traffic to the SEACOM cable. A couple of days later, segments of the EASSy cable were down again

for several hours, either for additional repairs or for work towards their 100 Gbps upgrade.

In any case, Telma of Madagascar (pictured lower left) had to shift traffic to Gilat satellite (in red)

as well as Orange Madagascar (in cyan) over the new LION2 submarine cable. The island nation of Comoros was offline as it is completely dependent on the EASSy cable.

the lower left, a screenshot from Renesys Internet Intelligence (RII) clearly shows the impact on latencies from Tokyo to Vietnam. Without the AAG cable, traffic from Tokyo had to hair-pin off the west coast of the United States to reach VNPT via an alternate submarine cable.

this information to TELE Greenland. In the plot below, we can see TELE Greenland’s loss of Canadian provider Eastlink (AS11260) twice in May. Each time it shifted its routes to Tele Danmark (TDC) (AS3292). The lawsuit requests names of the ships located in the vicinity of

Greenland

the cuts “between 2:20 UTC, May 1, 2013 until 3:20 UTC, May 3, 2013 inclusive” and “between 2:20 UTC, May 24, 2013 until 3:20 UTC, May 25, 2013 inclusive”. In fact, based on the timing of the disconnection of Eastlink and TELE Greenland in BGP routing data, we can see that the cuts took place at 3:33 UTC on May 3rd and 2:31 UTC on May 25th — the second one just 4 days after being restored at 14:48 UTC on May 21st.

FOG Cable Cut At 3:30 UTC on 2 March, the Fiber Optic Gulf (FOG) submarine cable suffered a break and wasn’t returned to service until the end of the month. The cable break impacted Qatar Telecom (a.k.a. Ooredoo) service around the Gulf. Below are examples of impacted providers in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Asia-America Gateway (AAG) The spur of the AAG submarine cable serving Vietnam suffered a cut on 21 December 2013. It wasn’t repaired until January 5th — more than two weeks later. Then earlier this month, the landing station was powered down for additional repairs lasting two weeks. While this cable outage was part of a planned repair, it still had a significant impact on latencies into Vietnam. In the graphic on

Although the Greenland submarine cable cuts didn’t take place this month, a lawsuit resulting from them did.

On March 7th, TELE Greenland brought forth a lawsuit in Canadian federal court in Halifax to force Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to reveal which fishing trawler cut its submarine cables not once but twice – on May 3rd and then again on May 25th of last year. Although the DFO tracks the location of such vessels, it has so far has refused to provide

Latencies from many European cities were unaffected by the cable cuts as they already used

York and Vienna, Austria to TELE Greenland during this time period are shown below.

Conclusions Truth be told, submarine cable cuts occur year around. One need only scroll through our twitter feed to find plenty of examples. They range from the bombing of the landing station for Silphium cable in Libya last September to the SMW3 cut off the coast of Perth, Australia last January. But in recent years, some of the highest profile incidents have occurred around this time of year. On the bright side, March 2014 is almost over.

TDC to reach Greenland from the east. However, in a few interesting cases (including Vienna, Austria), latencies improved (got lower) as a result of the cut by eliminating hairpinning through the United

States. Latencies from the US increased as Internet traffic bound for Greenland could no longer traverse the direct route through eastern Canada and instead had to bounce off Europe. Latencies from New

Article courtesy of

Doug Madory is a Senior Analyst at Renesys where he works on global Internet infrastructure analysis projects. He has a special interest in mapping the logical Internet to the physical (submarine and terrestrial cables) and in 2013 identified the activation of several significant cables: the ALBA-1 submarine cable serving Cuba, the EuropePersia Express Gateway (EPEG) terrestrial cable connecting Europe to the Middle East, and the International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) connecting India and Bangladesh.

Doug holds computer engineering degrees from the University of Virginia and Dartmouth College.

.com

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

Images courtesy of Atlantic-Cable.com

Back Reflection Cableships in World War I As the 4th August marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1 (WWI) it seems appropriate that this article should address the role of cableships during that conflict.

Only a few hours after the declaration of war between Britain and Germany, cableships went into action cutting German communications. On the morning of August 5, a British cable ship grappled for and severed five German telegraph cables in the southern North Sea. These were cables from Emden, on the Dutch frontier; one to Brest, another to Vigo, a third to Tenerife and two to New York. There has been some debate amongst historians as to whether the ship involved was Telcon’s Telconia or the British Post Office ship Alert (1)

but it is now reasonably certain that the ship was the Alert (1).

It is understood that for a short period, she hung on to one of the cables to the USA, intercepting German traffic until this was discovered. The New York – Fayal – Emden cable was then diverted to become the New York – Fayal – Porthcurno cable. On that same day, a British cruiser severed two German cables near the Azores.

Thus, from the first day of the war, Germany was cut off from direct cable communication with the world beyond Europe and could only communicate with their embassies in the Americas via radio, which of course could be overheard.

Unlike the British the Germans did not have access to their own cableship fleets. Instead they tried to cut British telegraph cables in the Pacific and Indian Oceans by

by Stewart Ash attacking the telegraph stations.

The first attack took place on Fanning Island in September 1914, the second in November on Direction Island, part of the Cocos Islands. In July 1915, the Germans managed to sever the Norway to Britain cable some 100nm from the Norwegian coast. None of these attacks disrupted traffic for more than a few days.

To aid the war effort a number of British vessels were converted to lay naval communication links, disrupt German communications and recover German cables diverting them for allied communications.

The more notable of these were the 1,113ton Hodder and 1,211ton Mersey, owned by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Co; converted in 1915. The Siaklot was a small steam trawler; the Madras was a

North Sea drifter. Finally four vessels called ‘Clyde Puffers’ the Invercloy(1), Glencloy, Glenray and Invercloy (2)were chartered from G & G Hamilton in Glasgow. The 283ton Levant II was fitted with twin bow sheaves and a simple cable winch. She took part in the Dardanelles campaign and, in 1915, within a few hours of the first troop landings, laid a cable from Imbros to Sulva, under heavy fire. This action was mentioned in dispatches and her master was decorated.

1915 was a particularly dangerous year for cable ships.

The Telconia was attacked by a German U-boat while grappling for a cable in the English Channel.

She cut away the cable and fled; fortunately a Royal Navy vessel arrived in time to drive the U-boat off before it could cause any damage. Later that same

pass down the side of the ship, within 2ft of the hull.

On the 27th May 1915, the Colonia loaded with 3,500nm of cable was moored, in Saltpan Reach, in the Medway estuary, off of Sheerness and close to HMS Princess Irene. The 5,394 ton Princess Irene was a passenger vessel owned by the Canadian

followed a few seconds later by another of similar height. A pall of smoke, more than 1,200 feet (370m) high, hung over the spot where Princess Irene had been.

Two barges laying alongside her were also destroyed. A total of 352 people were killed, including 273 officers and men, and 76 dockyard workers who were on board Princess Irene. On the Isle HMS Princess Irene in Royal Naval Livery

year, Telconia was holding onto a final spice in the North Sea when a mine was spotted drifting down onto the ships position on

a 3knot tide. There was no time to cut away, but the captain was able to manoeuvre the vessel sufficiently to allow the mine to CS Colonia at Greenwich Dolphins 1909. Image courtesy of Bill Holly

Pacific Railway, requisitioned by the Royal Navy, and had been converted to an auxiliary minelayer, with a complement of 225 officers and men. She was in Sheerness loading mines.

At 11:14 GMT, there was a massive explosion on the Princess Irene. A column of flame rose 300 feet (91m) into the air and was

of Grain a girl of nine was killed by flying debris, and a farmhand died of shock. A collier half a mile (800 m) away had its crane blown off its mounting and a part of one of Princess Irene’s boilers landed on it; one of the men working on the collier died from injuries sustained when struck by a piece of metal weighing 70 pounds (32kg). Wreckage

was flung up to 20 miles (32km) away. People near Sittingbourne in Kent, were injured by flying debris. A case of butter landed at Rainham, 6 miles (9.7km) away.

A 10ton (10,160kg) section of the ship landed on the Isle of Grain, where the Admiralty’s oil storage tanks were badly damaged.

The sole survivor onboard the Princes Irene was a stoker, who suffered severe burns. Amidst all this devastation the Colonia escaped with only minor damage to its skylights.

Other cable ships weren’t so lucky. On 8th September 1915, the British Post Office ship Monarch (2) was engaged in cable repairs 2.5nm south of Folkestone when she was blown up. Today it is still unclear whether it was a

mine or a torpedo that sank her but the ship went down within 3 minutes and the loss of three lives.

The 1,856ton CS Dacia was built, in 1867, for the India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company, and had a distinguished career as a cable layer. During WWI she was involved in cable diversion work for the French Government and achieved a number of major successes. On 3rd December 1916, the Dacia was engaged in diverting the German South America cable in order to connect Dakar with Brest, via Madeira. She and her French naval escorts, gunboat Surprise and auxiliary vessel Kangourou were working of Funchal, Madeira when they were

CS Dacia at the moment of the Explosion 3-12-1916

sunk by a German U-boat, with the loss of 41 lives. Although this diversion work was carried out in secret, after the war, the French Government recognised the work of the India Rubber Company, presenting its managing director, Mr C H Gray with the Croix de Chevalier de Légion d’Honneur.

It is difficult to assess the scale of advantage given to the allied forces by having control of international submarine telegraph during WWI. However, the famous “Zimmerman Telegram” which brought the USA into the war in 1917, was undeniably a major milestone attributable to this control. Without the bravery, skill and in some cases ultimate sacrifice of a small group of specialist mariners, the allied forces would not have been able to intercept this telegram when sent over British controlled cables. It ended up in Room 40 in the British Admiralty, where it was decrypted and made available to President Woodrow Wilson. The entry of the USA into the conflict was a crucial factor in the final cessation of violence at 11:00 GMT on 11th November 1918.

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.

Coming in August and September...

Summer in the Northern Hemisphere can be a slow time of year for the industry, however SubTel Forum is as busy as ever! Over the next month and a half, we will be releasing three of our most anticipated products, including the Submarine Cable Almanac, Annual Industry Report, and the ever popular SubTel Forum Magazine.

The following products are in order of release, beginning mid-August: Submarine Cable Almanac Issue #11 - Third Quarter Edition Overview: Quarterly publication, detailed listing of international cable systems Average Downloads: 480,000+

Submarine Telecoms Industry Report Issue #3 - 2014 Edition Overview: Annual publication, detailed industry analysis Average Downloads: 40,000+

In this Issue: This digital document serves as complement to our Submarine Cable Map and features each major international system on its own page, along with a system map, landing points, system capacity, length, RFS year and other valuable data.

In this Issue: The final chapter in a trilogy of products beginning with the Submarine Cable Map. Featuring in-depth analysis and speculation on the submarine cable industry, the Report will serve as an excellent resource for anyone interested in the health of the market.

Ad Spaces: Two-Page Spread: 11” wide x 8.5” tall Price: $5,000

Ad Spaces: Two-Page Spread: 11” wide x 8.5” tall Price: $5,000

SubTel Forum Magazine Issue #78 – Offshore Energy Overview: Bi-monthly publication, news and opinion based articles, roughly 100 pages an issue.

Average Downloads: 78,000 In this Issue: This issue addresses everything from new technologies used in the field, opinion on emerging markets, and regional overviews and analysis.

Articles will include an overview of regional markets, market outlooks, new technologies being utilized and an in depth analysis of different operators and energy producers.

Ad Spaces: Two-Page Spread: 11” wide x 8.5” tall Price: $5,000 Single Page: 5.5” wide x 8.5” tall Price: $3,500 Lower-Third: 11”wide x 3” tall Price: $2,500 As you’re looking ahead to your marketing budgets and monthly targets, I hope that this publication will prove useful for you. If you have any questions, or would like to be featured in any of the SubTel Forum publications, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Kristian Nielsen literally grew up in the business since his first ‘romp’ on a BTM cableship in Southampton at age 5. He 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, sales, and over-all direction and sales of SubTel 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: Stewart Ash, Kieran Clark, Dr. Frank Donaghy, John Hibbard, Doug Madory, 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.

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Submarine Networks World 13-15 October 2014 Singapore Website PTC 2015 18-21 January 2015 Honolulu, Hawaii USA Website

I

grew up reading comic books, and one of the things that I always loved, back in the days before the internet anyway, was reading the letters page of my favorite comics. A good letters page wasn’t just a fan letter printed on its own, but was accompanied by an actual response from, you guessed it, THE EDITOR. Guess what?

That’s what we’re going to do here today with this Coda. So, without further ado: Kevin and Wayne, The new format for SubTelForum looks great and works well on all tablets, phone and computers. Very very green as well.

Great job as it travels through our fibre light now.

Bruce Morris Well, thank you Bruce. One of our goals with this new format was to make our products more useful with mobile devices. Now you can

load the magazine from any device and actually be able to read it. I use an iPhone 4S, which is pretty darned small compared to the giant super-duper Windows phone that Kristian uses, and I can read the mag now without having to zoom in.

Pretty sweet I must say. And, of course, it had to look good or we wouldn’t be able to put the S u b Te l F o r u m logo on it.

That’s in my contract.

end-result is excellent and trust that the rest of your readers do too!!

Many thanks and best regards, Adrian Linden

Thanks!

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 an author of fiction whose works include ISOLATION WARD 4, THE BELL CURSE and LEGENDARIUM. +1.703.468.0554 editor@subtelforum.com

Kevin, I just wanted to drop you this quick note to say how much I like what you did with Mike’s Africa elevated to new heights article and the additional imagery you sourced. I think the overall

That’s all for this Coda. Send me some more letters and we’ll do this again. This has been fun.

Thanks Adrian! Bringing an author’s piece to life with the right style and graphics is one of my favorite parts about this job.

Voice

of the Industry