ANALYTICS
BY KIERAN CLARK
REGIONAL SYSTEMS OUTLOOK Settling into Cruising Speed
L
ast year was undoubtedly one of the of their infrastructure plans? A slow Welcome to SubTel Forum’s annual most productive the submarine fiber down in demand? Or did the industry Regional Systems issue. This month, industry has had since before the simply peak last year and is now setwe’ll take a brief look at system progindustry crash of the early 2000s. After tling into a more comfortable cruising ress around the world and talk a little a disappointing 2016 – which saw only speed? bit about some of the challenges the 6 new systems and 35,000 kilometers of new cable – implementing 15 new systems and reaching the 100,000 kilome'2018' 30 ters mark again was a welcome change in 2017. '2017' 25 However, with 2018 more than half over it is clear that 20 industry is not able to sustain that level of output. By year’s 15 end, we will have added only 10 57,000 kilometers of new cable which, while still signifi5 cantly better than anything compared to 2011-2016, is 0 '2017' '2018' '2019' '2020' still a far cry from last year. So, the question is: Why? Is it Over-The-Top (OTT) Figure 1: Systems Announced RFS by Year, 2017-2020 providers reaching the end
6
SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE