Eighteen months ago I was appearing as an “industry expert” as part of a Round Table panel discussion. The panel was asked an exacting question by a determined member of the audience. “When would we see the green shoots of recovery in our once, much admired industry?” Needless to say all the so-called experts threw bets on the table with forecasts that left as much room for vagueness and retraction as possible. I was the last to answer and I said, “March 29th 2004”. The questioner jumped to his feet immediately to ask for my reasoning for such a precise reply. “Because it is the start of SubOptic 2004……… “. I’m not sure why I answered as I did, but perhaps looking into the foggy crystal ball, I had an intuitive feeling that by this date we as an industry would have taken as much pain as we could bear. We would be driven to get together to understand how we had rationalised, how we might regroup and where the real value was in building, owning and oper-
By Alan Robinson
SubOptic in Monaco - a tonic for the hangover!
Recovery or Rationalisation? 11
ating submarine networks. Firstly, it is probably worth recalling some of the objectives of the conference from the SubOptic Constitution: • It is a mutual, non-profit making organisation • Its objective is to promote the interests of the submarine telecommunications cable community by exchanging ideas and information, educating within the community and fostering debate