FROM THE
PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
REGIONAL SYSTEMS, SUBOPTIC AND GLOBALIZATION
BY STUART BARNES AND KEITH RUSSELL SHAW
W
hen the “Founding Fathers (and Mothers)” of our Industry gathered in Paris in 1986 none could have envisioned the tectonic shifts that have occurred since then. Telephony and Commerce were the drivers, and this meant that the vast majority of links revolved around a Japanese, USA and Western European axis. As a natural consequence all the PTT’s, installers and equipment manufacturers were to be found in these countries. These systems were essentially long haul in nature and in the fullness of time built out to surrounding regions. Todays’ systems, fueled by the Internet and insatiable demand for social media, are echoing these trends as large data centers are being built almost on a daily basis and connected by long submarine links. These “hubs” will naturally be extended by “spokes” to distribute bandwidth to users Of course, this axis was naturally reflected in the attendance at the first SubOptic and the ensuing organization. Over the years SubOptic has been trying to throw off the shackles of its original constitution and reflecting the truly Global Nature of OUR business. We have seen SubOptic in Dubai 2016 and
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after New Orleans 2019 the next will be in China/Far East in 2022. We have seen the Membership grow rapidly to over 50 Organizations and still growing fast. Now the Executive Committee agreed to support a Regional Ambassador initiative. This resulted in the appointment of many leading lights in regions of the world wherein there was significant industry but a relatively quiet voice! We have every hope that these ambassadors (see below) can raise the issues within their region and ensure that the debates in SubOptic 2019 reflect a truly global view. As we are in the Papers Submission phase we hope the Regional Ambassadors will encourage contributions from players (Operators, Suppliers and Academia) within their region Today the industry is facing a number of massive issues; Cyber Crime, Law of the Sea initiatives by the UN, International Territorial Disputes, the all-pervasive Internet to name a few. These are truly global issues and require a coherent voice to ensure that Our Industry maximizes our position in the forthcoming debates on these critical topics. STF
STUART BARNES gained an Honours Degree and PhD from London University. He has been an engineer and manager with 40 years experience in telecommunications, of which 30 years has been in submarine systems. His career spans the last years of analogue technology through to the latest coherent optical systems. He has been actively involved with all 3 phases of ownership starting with PTT’s, through Carriers Carrier through to today’s OTT era. Starting as a research engineer he was privileged to be involved in the first regenerative optical systems in both cable and repeater design. Then as Technical Director of STC he led the development of ASN’s new repeater and PFE (both in use today) and first WDM SLTE. In subsequent years he has been was involved in both new SLTE developments with Azea Networks and repeater developments with Xtera Communications Inc. He has attended the majority of SubOptic events since the inception, both authoring and sponsoring many publications. He was Chair of the Papers Committee when SubOptic was held in San Francisco and was an active participant in Dubai, helping Elaine Stafford prepare the closing ceremony. He was Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering at Southampton University and Advisor to the School of Photonics at Aston University KEITH RUSSELL Shaw is Vice President EMEA for Datacenter, Cloud, Subsea for EQUINIX and Vice Chair of Board of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, as well as leading and developing the ASEAN region for SubOptic 2019, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. He possesses a Post Graduate Diploma in Management Studies from the University of London.