SubTel Forum Magazine #116 - Global Outlook

SUBMARINE TELECOMS

FORUM ISSUE 116 | JANUARY 2021

GLOBAL

OUTLOOK

EXORDIUM FROM THE PUBLISHER WELCOME TO ISSUE 116, OUR GLOBAL OUTLOOK EDITION

H

appy 2021! We hope this finds you and those you care about well.

For the past 35 years save one I would be well on my way to Honolulu by now. I would have probably already had a good days diving, probably would have hiked Diamond Head crater, probably would have a couple Waikiki runs under my belt, as well as a few Mai Tais. But this year we find ourselves still adapting as necessary to the reality we have all lived for the last 11 months or so.

But it is also a new year with new possibilities. I take heart that inoculations around the world have begun in earnest. Thankfully, we are starting to see a glimpse of the new world in store. And it is coming not a moment too soon…

We have had to make a few changes to the office lately.

Schools here in Virginia like so many other places have had to close anew and the “hybrid” model of parttime in/ out of the classroom has become 100% distance learning.

We expect to be living DL for the next month or so, which impacts the teachers working from home in my extended family, as well as our school age grandchildren.

So, we started “schooling” my granddaughter recently for two days a week. On Wednesdays and Fridays, we have her here in one of the offices with math, reading and even PE instruction coming from her laptop. She and a bunch of 5and 6-year-olds are connected to their teacher who miraculously keeps their attention for 50 minutes at a clip, all the while teaching them their numbers and letters.

This week while the rest of our folks were finalizing a monster project, I took the opportunity to spring my granddaughter from the office during her morning break, and the two of us took a long walk on the paths outside our building. I have wanted to walk and clear my head in the past, but the time never seemed right. On the way back my granddaughter started counting in time with our

2 SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

A Publication of Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. www.subtelforum.com ISSN No. 1948-3031 PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER: Wayne Nielsen | wnielsen@subtelforum.com

cadence and by the time we reached the door we hit the magic number, 100, which I was informed was by far the biggest number she had ever tallied.

There are a number of things I never want to repeat from 2020 but having time like this has been a godsend.

As always, we have some really excellent articles this issue from a number of international authors. Global Outlook is meant to be a wide-open theme and I think you’ll agree that our authors have certainly hit that mark, and of course, our ever popular “where in the world are all those pesky cableships” is included as well.

Like many I am virtually attending PTC ’21 in Honolulu. A lot has changed in our industry in the last twelve months.

COVID-19 has certainly stressed, but not broken our industry. We have adapted and accomplished the seemingly impossible, all the while keeping our world stitched together.

The sheer number of systems that are or have been built in the recent past continues to be staggering. Whether we are continuing the pace or starting a new phase, I look forward like you to learning more.

So as always, should you be attending PTC ’21, please come to our SubTel Forum virtual booth to say hello and of course, save me a seat at the virtual Mai Tai Bar! Good reading and let’s have an awesome 2021. STF

Wayne Nielsen, Publisher

VICE PRESIDENT: Kristian Nielsen | knielsen@subtelforum.com SALES: Teri Jones | tjones@subtelforum.com | [+1] (703) 471-4902 EDITOR: Stephen Nielsen | snielsen@subtelforum.com DESIGN & PRODUCTION: Weswen Design | wendy@weswendesign.com DEPARTMENT WRITERS: Bill Burns, Kieran Clark, Rebecca Spence, Stewart Ash, Terri Jones and Wayne Nielsen FEATURE WRITERS: Brian Crawford, Dag Aanensen, Derek Webster, Gary Kennedy, Geoff Bennett, Georges Krebs, Greg Twitt, Jean Devos, Jim Baumann, John Tibbles, Kristian Nielsen, Laurent Campagne, Mattias Fridström, Patrick Faidherbe and Peter Bannister NEXT ISSUE: March 2021 — Finance & Legal

SUBMARINE TELECOMS

FORUM ISSUE 117 | MARCH 2021

FINANCE & LEGAL

AUTHOR AND ARTICLE INDEX: www.subtelforum.com/onlineindex Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. www.subtelforum.com/corporate-information BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Margaret Nielsen, Wayne Nielsen and Kristian Nielsen SubTel Forum Analytics, Division of Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. www.subtelforum.com/store/reports LEAD ANALYST: Kieran Clark | kclark@subtelforum.com | [+1] (703) 468-1382 RESEARCH ANALYST: Rebecca Spence | rspence@subtelforum.com | [+1] (703) 268-9285 SubTel Forum Continuing Education, Division of Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. www.subtelforum.com/education CONTINUING EDUCATION DIRECTOR: Kristian Nielsen | knielsen@subtelforum.com | [+1] (703) 444-0845

Contributions are welcomed and should be forwarded to: pressroom@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.

New Subscriptions, Enquiries and Changes of Address: 21495 Ridgetop Circle, Suite 201, Sterling, Virginia 20166, USA, or call [+1] (703) 444-0845, fax [+1] (703) 349-5562, or visit www.subtelforum.com.

Copyright © 2021 Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc.

V O I C E O F T H E I N D U S T RY

IN THIS FORUM ISSUE

SUBMARINE TELECOMS

ISSUE 116 | JANUARY 2021

features

16

28

By Mattias Fridström

By Brian Crawford

20

36

THE CARRIER GUIDE TO 2021

PTC 2021 AND BEYOND

SUBMARINE CABLE DESIGN LIFE LESSONS

PUBLISHER OF SUBSEA CABLE NEWS USES ARCGIS FOR INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND INTERACTIVE MAP PRODUCTION

By Jim Baumann

24

DATA CENTERS: ‘CARBON PROCESSING UNITS’ AND GREEN SOLUTION PROVIDERS?

By Derek Webster

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

41

POLITICS OR PLANNING

By John Tibbles

41

50

By Peter Bannister and Gary Kennedy

By Geoff Bennett

44

54

PROJECT ‘KOETE’ CONTINUES TO GO ‘BEYOND

THE OPEN ROAD TO SUBMARINE CAPACITY

LATENCY IS THE NEW CURRENCY

PREPARING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ADDITIONAL SUBSEA CABLES IN VIRGINIA BEACH

By Dag Aanensen

By Greg Twitt

46

58

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

SUBMARINE CABLE HUBS AROUND THE WORLD

By Kristian Nielsen

By Patrick Faidherbe, Laurent Campagne, Georges Krebs and Jean Devos

departments EXORDIUM........................................................ 2

BACK REFLECTION........................................... 64

SUBTELFORUM.COM.......................................... 6

ON THE MOVE................................................... 71

STF ANALYTICS.................................................. 8

SUBMARINE CABLE NEWS NOW....................... 72

CABLE MAP UPDATE......................................... 12

ADVERTISER CORNER.......................................74

WHERE IN THE WORLD..................................... 14 JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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SubTelForum.com

VisitSubTelForum.com SubTelForum.com to to find find links resources Visit linkstotothe thefollowing following resources

FREERESOURCES RESOURCESFOR FORALL ALLOUR OUR SUBTELFORUM.COM SUBTELFORUM.COM READERS FREE READERS The most popular articles, Q&As of 2020.

TOP OFyou 2019 FindSTORIES out what missed!

The most popular articles, Q&As of 2019. Find out what you NEWSmissed!

NOW RSS FEED Keep on top of our world of coverage with our free News NEWSdaily NOW industry RSS FEEDupdate. News Now is a daily RSS feed Now Keep on top of our world of coverage with our freehighNews of news applicable to the submarine cable industry, Now daily industry update.

News Now is a daily RSS&feed lighting Cable Faults & Maintenance, Conferences As-of news applicable to the submarine industry, highlighting sociations, Current Systems, Datacable Centers, Future Systems, Cable Faults & Maintenance, Associations, Offshore Energy, State of the Conferences Industry and&Technology & Current Systems, Data Centers, Future Systems, Offshore Upgrades.

Energy, State of the Industry and Technology & Upgrades.

PUBLICATIONS PUBLICATIONS Submarine Cable Almanac is a free quarterly publica-

Submarine Cablethrough Almanacdiligent is a freedata quarterly publication made available gathering and tion madeefforts available through diligent data gathering and mapping by the analysts at SubTel Forum Analytics,

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

a division of Submarine Telecoms Forum. This reference mapping analysts at SubTel Forum Analytics, tool givesefforts detailsby onthe cable systems including a system map, a division of Submarine Telecoms Forum.

This reference landing points, system capacity, length, RFS year and other tool givesdata. details on cable systems including a system map, valuable landing points,Telecoms system capacity, and free other Submarine Industrylength, ReportRFS is anyear annual valuable data. publication with analysis of data collected by the analysts of Submarine Report is an annualanalyfree SubTel ForumTelecoms Analytics,Industry including system capacity publication of data collected by the of analysts of sis, as well aswith the analysis actual productivity and outlook current SubTel Forum Analytics, including system capacity and planned systems and the companies that serviceanalythem. sis, as well as the actual productivity and outlook of current and planned CABLE MAP systems and the companies that service them.

The online SubTel Cable Map is built with the industry CABLE MAP standard Esri ArcGIS platform and linked to the SubTel The online SubTel Cable Map is built withthe theprogress industryof Forum Submarine Cable Database.

It tracks standard Esri ArcGIS platform and linked to the SubTel some 300+ current and planned cable systems, more than Forum Submarine Database. tracks46 thecable progress 800 landing points,Cable over 1,700 data It centers, shipsof

as well as mobile subscriptions and internet accessibility data for 254 countries. Systems are also linked to SubTel Forum's News Now Feed, allowing viewing of current and archived news details.

The printed Cable Map is an annual publication showcasing the world's submarine fiber systems beautifully drawn on a large format map and mailed to SubTel Forum Readership and/or distributed during Pacific Telecommunications Conference in January each year.

VIDEO STREAMING AND TUTORIALS

SubTel Forum tutorials teach how to use the ever growing SubTel Cable Map, including various map layers for data centers, cable ships, etc.

CONTINUING EDUCATION

SubTel Forum designs educational courses and master classes that can then appear at industry conferences around the world. Classes are presented on a variety of topics dealing with key industry technical, business, or commercial issues.

See what classes SubTel Forum is accrediting in support of the next generation of leaders in our industry.

AUTHORS INDEX

The Authors Index is a reference source to help readers locate magazine articles and authors on various subjects.

EXCLUSIVE INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS OF MARKET SECTOR REPORTS SUBTEL FORUM ANALYTICS MARKET SECTOR REPORTS

SubTel Forum Subscribers have exclusive access to SubTel Forum online MSRs updated quarterly: DATA CENTER & OTT PROVIDERS: Details the increasingly shrinking divide between the cable landing station and the backhaul to interconnection services in order to maximize network efficiency throughout, bringing once disparate infrastructure into a single facility.

If you're interested in the world of Data Centers and its impact on Submarine Cables, this MSR is for you.

GLOBAL CAPACITY PRICING: historic and current capacity pricing for regional routes (Transatlantic, Transpacific, Americas, Intra-Asia and EMEA), delivering a comprehensive look at the global capacity pricing status of the submarine fiber industry.

Capacity pricing trends and forecasting simplified.

GLOBAL OUTLOOK: dive into the health and wellness of the global submarine telecoms market, with regional analysis and forecasting. This MSR gives an overview of planned systems, CIF and project completion rates, state of supplier activity and potential disruptive factors facing the market.

OFFSHORE OIL & GAS: provides a detailed overview o the offshore oil & gas sector of the submarine fiber industry and covers system owners, system suppliers and various market trends. This MSR details how the industry is focusing on trends and new technologies to increase efficiency and automation as a key strategy to reduce cost and maintain margins, and its impact on the demand for new offshore fiber systems.

REGIONAL SYSTEMS: drill down into the Regional Systems market, including focused analysis on the Transatlantic, Transpacific, EMEA, AustralAsia, Indian Ocean Pan-East Asian and Arctic regions. This MSR details the impact of increasing capacity demands on regional routes and contrasts potential overbuild concerns with the rapid pace of system development and the factors driving development demand.

SUBMARINE CABLE DATASET: details 400+ fiber optic cable systems. Including physical aspects, cost, owners, suppliers, landings, financiers, component manufacturers, marine contractors, etc. STF

ANALYTICS

BY KIERAN CLARK

THE COVID IMPACT – 2019 VS 2020

T

he world has gone through an unprecedented disruption with the COVID-19 pandemic. This has both caused a huge increase in capacity demand as people work from home and companies rely even more on cloud services, and a disruption in the submarine fiber industry’s ability to produce new systems and maintain existing ones. Stringent quarantine procedures have hampered all maritime operations, adding weeks or even months to a project’s timeline.

New COVID cases continue to rise around the world (Figure 1), even as vaccines begin rolling out. It is likely that the world will still be grappling with the impact of this pandemic for most of 2021 as getting the entire world vaccinated is not something that can happen overnight. Additionally, procedures that have been developed to deal with the current crisis may stay in place to lessen the impact of any future outbreaks. This pandemic will likely have long-term impacts on all industries throughout the world that affect work flows and overall economic output for years to come.

AS OPINED IN MAY 2020:

No one knows the real economic repercussions post CV19; indeed no one even knows when the pandemic will be declared officially history.

A severe economic slowdown allied to a reversal of globalisation and outsourcing

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

may well negatively impact new cable build on conventional routes. Of course, one could argue that changes in work habits, less travel and less physical presence will add to ‘conventional’ demand.

Less conventional sources of demand like digital service growth in mass populations, security and digital independence may create demand for new paths such as the Southern Oceans and unconventional routings in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. (Tibbles, 2020) Eight months later, these sentiments still hold true.

Welcome to SubTel Forum’s annual Global Outlook issue. This month,

we will take a brief look at how the industry performed around the world last year and see what the future might bring. The data used in this article is obtained from the public domain and is tracked by the ever-evolving SubTel Forum Analytics Submarine Cable Database, where products like the Submarine Cable Almanac, Submarine Cable Map and Submarine Telecoms Industry Report find their roots.

Compared to new system activity in 2019, system output in 2020 fell by nearly half. In total, there were 11 new systems implemented in 2020, compared to 20 the previous year. Nearly every region around the world saw a

Figure 1 - Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard

Figure 1: European Data Center and Transatlantic Submarine Cable Capacity Growth, 2020-2025

operations in a timely manner. significant reduction in activity except Other than SubCom and NEC for the Transpacific – which saw the which saw a slight increase in supplier addition of a single new systems beactivity based on officially announced tween the United States and Asia. project information, almost all othThis is a far cry from the expected 25+ systems that were originally expected to enter service in 2020 when the Submarine Telecoms Industry Report was published back in October.

It is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic had an even greater impact than initially expected on new system implementation. Stringent Figure 2: New Systems by Region, 2019 vs 2020 quarantine procedures and social distancing have restricted the ability er suppliers observed a reduction of suppliers to operate facilities at full in project activity compared to the capacity and installers to begin marine previous year. Each company has had

to adapt to the pandemic and come up with quarantine procedures that try to ensure both safety for workers and the ability for projects to be implemented in a reasonable time frame.

Keeping in mind COVID-19 touched every industry in the world, the submarine cable sphere was no exception. Many cable ships logged weeks and months of inactivity during lockdowns in various countries, causing delays in several active projects.

Despite 2020 being heavily impacted by the pandemic, future outlook looks promising overall. One of the bright spots of COVID-19 has been an increased reliance on telecommunications services for remote work and cloud NOVEMBER 2020 | ISSUE 115

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ANALYTICS services – all of which needs international connectivity to power our global economy. Several systems that were initially planned for 2020 have simply been delayed and new systems have continued to be announced as the demand for capacity only continues to rise. Additionally, continued interest in Polar routes have opened entirely new pathways for submarine cable routes.

Over the next 3 years, a total of 53 new submarine cable systems have been announced. While it is unlikely that all 27 systems planned for 2021 will enter service as the industry continues to deal with quarantine measures and an overall project backlog, the probability that most of these announced systems will enter service should be high. In the new reality working through and relying on the cloud more than ever, new systems will need to be implemented to keep up with bandwidth demand and replace aging infrastructure. As 69% of all Transatlantic and 58% of all Transpacific cables are more than 10 years old, there is a significant market potential for new systems in the two most competitive regions in the world.

Finally, as people get used to the new normal of virtual interactivity, demand for bandwidth will only continue to skyrocket and drive the need for additional submarine cables.

If you would like an even more detailed look at the current state of the submarine fiber industry be sure to check out SubTel Forum Analytics’ Global Outlook report. STF

BY KIERAN CLARK

Figure 3: System Supplier Activity, 2019 vs 2020

Figure 4: Planned Systems, 2021-2023

KIERAN CLARK is the Lead Analyst for STF Analytics, a division of Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. He originally joined SubTel Forum in 2013 as a Broadcast Technician to provide support for live event video streaming. He has 6+ years of live production experience and has worked alongside some of the

premier organizations in video web streaming. In 2014, Kieran was promoted to Analyst and is currently responsible for the research and maintenance that supports the STF Analytics Submarine Cable Database. In 2016, he was promoted to Lead Analyst and put in charge of the newly created STF Analytics. His analysis is featured in almost the entire array of SubTel Forum publications.

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

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FEATURE SubTel Cable Map Updates

T

he SubTel Cable Map is built with the industry standard Esri ArcGIS platform and linked to the SubTel Forum Submarine Cable Database. It tracks the progress of some 300+ current and planned cable systems, 45+ cable ships, over 800 landing points, as well as mobile subscriptions and internet accessibility data for 254 countries. Systems are also linked to SubTel Forum’s News Now Feed, allowing viewing of current and archived news details.

This interactive map is a continual work and progress and regularly updated with pertinent data captured by analysts at SubTel Forum and feedback from our users. Our goal is to make easily available not only data from the Submarine Cable Almanac, but also more and more new layers of system information.

The SubTel Cable Map makes use of the ArcGIS Dashboards platforum.

This allows users to see an array of key data points without having to dig through complicated menus and settings to drill down into the data that is important to you. Be sure to check out the slide over panel on the left hand side of the map to filter data based on Region, System Supplier, System Installer or System Owner.

Want to know how much capacity

is available along Transpacific routes or how many kilometers of cable a supplier has produced over the last five year? Now all it takes is couple simple clicks to see your data!

We hope you continue to make use of the SubTel Cable Map in order to learn more about the industry yourself and educate others on the importance of submarine cable systems.

Please feel free to reach out to our Lead Analyst, Kieran Clark, should you have any comments, questions or updates at kclark@subtelforum.com. STF

Since the last issue of the Magazine, the map has added 1 system and updated an additional 35.

The full list of updated systems are as follows::

SUBTELFORUM.COM/CABLEMAP 12

SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

AS OF JANUARY 18, 2021 NEW SYSTEMS Blue Raman Systems Updated AAG AC-2 Americas I South Arctic Connect ATISA Avassa BKK Digitek Blue-Raman BP GoM BtoBE Celtic Norse Confluence-1 Dunant Eastern Light EAUFON Echo Equiano Fehmarn Bält Grace Hopper HAVTOR

HUGO IAX IEX Italy-Greece JAKABARE JGA North North Sea Connect ORVAL Project Koete SAEx East SAEx West SEAX-1 SkagenFiber TEAS UGARIT Additionally, for this month, we have implemented more than 160 unrepeatered systems to the online map. There are too many to list here, but please have a look at all the new additions and stay tuned for other updates to the design and capability we plan to make to the SubTel Cable Map over the next several months.

JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE THOSE PESKY CABLESHIPS?

BY REBECCA SPENCE

J

anuary 2021 is finally upon us and the cableship fleet is starting the year at a great clip. The amount of activity did slow a little in the last few weeks with the holidays, but as COVID-19 restrictions have limited the frequency with which maritime crews can be replaced, there was less down time than might be seen in other years. This edition of Where in the World Are Those Pesky Cableships has the usual updates of what the fleet is currently doing, as well as a review of the past year.

At the time the data for this article was collected in early January, there were 11 vessels in transit to their destinations (Figure 1). Two were set to arrive at their destinations the second week in January, 6 would arrive later in the month, and another 3 have estimated arrival dates several months out.

Though the number of ships in transit changes day by day, since mid-2020 the number of ships in transit to destinations several weeks out has slowly increased. 77 percent of the fleet had reached their most recent destinations and 23 percent were in transit. The majority of 2020 saw a slightly lower number of vessels in transit, sitting closer to 20 percent until recently.

Figure 3 examines the average speeds reported between early February when we started tracking the cableships, and the last day of the year. The vast majority, 77 percent, reported daily speeds of less than 1 knot, which includes 47 percent of ships that reported days with no movement at all.

Another percent reported a speed between 1 and 5 knots, 9 percent stayed between 6 and 10 percent and the remaining 11 percent of daily reports were more than 11 knots.

The current fleet has not changed much over the course of the year. Apart from the loss of the C/S Responder, not other changes were made. Our data currently tracks the activities of 47 cable vessels across the globe.

East Asia, China, and South East Asia saw the most

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

activity throughout the year with a combined 24 percent of the daily reports occurring in those three regions. Naturally, vessels would report a large number of days in those areas as they cover a vast area. The subsequent most active regions were the North Sea, Northeast Atlantic, Baltic Ocean, Persian Gulf, and North American West Coast with 5-9 percent of daily reports. The remaining 34 percent of daily reports were spread among 23 regions. The majority of these regions had less than one percent of the activity for the year.

The first year tracking these vessels has been interesting as there was data that might have been affected by the Covid-19 epidemic. As more time passes, the impact of the covid-19 epidemic on the submarine cable industry will become clearer and the data will show what a normal year should be with regards to progress and activity. . STF REBECCA SPENCE is the newest member of the SubTel Forum team. She joined our ranks as a Research Analyst at the end of 2019. A graduate of Christopher Newport University, this is Rebecca’s premier article for the STF magazine.

JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE

THE CARRIER GUIDE TO 2021 Traffic, Technology and Unsung Heroes

BY MATTIAS FRIDSTRÖM

A

ccording to the Chinese Zodiac, 2021 is the Year of the Ox. In Chinese culture, oxen are considered to be honest and earnest. They are determined and stubborn, but also low-key and don’t seek praise. This often hides their talent, but they earn recognition through honest hard work. In many ways, I can’t help but thinking this is a good metaphor for the telecom industry in general. Our world was turned upside down in 2020 and it was gratifying to see the industry come together and solve many of the communication-related challenges that arose from the pandemic. For example, the need to socially-distance and work from home. As traffic growth continues unabated, many of these challenges will persist into 2021. Addressing these, we’ll need to relentlessly pursue our mission to ensure reliable, fast and secure connectivity across the globe. And in keeping with our traditional ‘Top 3’ predictions for the year ahead, here are a few thoughts about 2021.

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

THE TOP 3 GLOBAL CARRIER INDUSTRY TRENDS

1. People may not go back to the office - at least for the first part of the year. With the unprecedented and brutal impact of Covid-19 on networks worldwide, every day started to look like a Sunday, with traffic spread more evenly throughout the day. Traffic peaks grew more than 60% compared to pre-covid-19 days, and most networks had to rapidly adapt their operations. This will become a new reality in 2021 and many observers predict that this traffic trend will persist, despite new vaccines and other solutions to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

2. The public Internet for everything. Until very recently, the public Internet was a “best effort” network, good enough for certain gaming and streaming applications at best. Today, more and more traffic traverses the 98 000 ASNs that make up the public Internet, and even Enterprises will trust this network with the majority of their internal traffic - between offices and other production facilities. Add carrier security solutions and its inherent flexibility makes it a perfect underlay for all

kinds of mission-critical traffic.

3. Renewed interest in satellites, again. Around 20 years ago, most satellite links for voice and data applications, even TV, were replaced with fibers along the seabed or beneath the soil. The capacity limits and long delay times rendered satellite communications irrelevant in the most densely populated areas of the Globe. Today, when satellites can operate together in lower orbits en masse, across a highly meshed network, they will start to have a big impact on global communication again. Rural areas are the primary target for these new services, but the short hops at the speed of light between low flying satellites could also be useful for some latency-critical traffic in more densely populated areas, too.

THE TOP 3 TECHNOLOGY AND TRAFFIC TRENDS

1. 5G for real. For years we have talked about this emerging technology and what it can do. During 2021 we will finally see a tangible impact from the services it can provide and the problems it can solve. Initially, it will be very much business-case driven, with the “big rollout” coming years later for the wider public, but it will certainly move the needle for many of us. It is usually when the first deployments start that the really cool use cases appear.

2. Increased carrier-level security. DDoS protection and RPKI (Resource Public Key Interface) have been largely viewed as just ‘nice-to-have- for some ISPs for many years. Now with the Public Internet as the underlay of choice for all sorts of traffic, these security solutions have become increasingly important and are now seen as a “first line of defense” against malicious traffic or highjacking. They will not replace firewalls and other on prem or cloud security mechanisms further up the stack, but they will certainly make the network a safer and more reliable place.

3. The way we build and operate our networks. The introduction of ZR and ZR+ technologies will radically change how we do things. Whilst this is very much still in the laboratory, we see promising signs from 400G ZR testing, and during 2021 we will see the first real world installations. Initially, these will be used to test wavelengths framing and FEC schemes, as well as increased transparency of performance management data via streaming telemetry but quite soon we will also see operational traffic on shorter metro distances in real use.

THE TOP 3 LEARNINGS FROM COVID-19

1. Never run your network hot. Carriers and Internet Service Providers can often be tempted to run the net-

work a bit hotter to slow down the pace of investment.

During perfect circumstances, and without any outages, some networks links can be pushed beyond 70-80% utilization to move network investments forward in time.

For the providers that do, the first three weeks of March 2020 was probably not a particularly nice experience.

The key learning is that networks must always be prepared for the unexpected because you can never predict when the next traffic avalanche will come.

2. Never become too dependent on one supplier. Very few of the global IP and DWDM suppliers have their entire chain of production in-house. Fewer still have operate dual production sites for every single component. Also, when you thought your dual vendor policy protected you from single supplier issues, it became brutally apparent many suppliers share the same production chain, and a single factory in a distant land can often be the difference between new ports or not.

3. Simulation tools are key. Carriers and Wholesale providers have always been very dependent on manual resources to plan network augmentation. Highly skilled engineers have competed with each other to claim the best network performance. With a sudden and unexpected traffic increase of more than 30% in only three weeks, simulation tools are an indispensable tool for calculating where the largest impact of additional capacity might be. Without proper network design and implementation with explosive traffic levels like we saw during the pandemic, a single fiber break can cause major traffic disturbances across the entire network. And manual capacity management processes simply can’t keep up.

THE TOP 3 THINGS YOU NEED FOR TRUE AUTOMATION

1. A solid inventory system. Most Carriers bear the legacy of several different networks - acquired over many years and bringing with them the complexity of multiple inventories. Legacy hardware is a challenge even with your organically grown network, but inventory complexity increases dramatically for every additional legacy network that has to be managed. The dreams of self-service and full transparency all start with a clear and coherent register of network hardware. Building a new inventory system is no mean feat, but in the longer run it is the only way to go for a Carrier with heady automation ambitions.

2. Sufficient network data to work with. Machine Learning and AI features could, and should, have a major impact on how we run our networks in the future. WhethJANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE er we are predicting where the next fault will occur, or just wanting to better understand the current state of a router, machine learning will only really have an impact if we have enough data to develop our insights and draw conclusions from. Sometimes, we simply don’t have enough faults in our own networks for us to identify the parameters that indicate when an outage is about to happen. In 2021, we will really start to capitalize on the data that is flooding out of our systems - about the status of ports, cards and other critical components 3. Skilled people. Without people who understand the mathematical complexities of network automation and streaming telemetry, it is unrealistic to assume that the major hurdles of true automation can be overcome. Fully understanding what you have and what you need is really important here. These insights then require other machines or ideally, suitably qualified human beings to act upon them, and make the right decisions. Skilled people will (hopefully) never be replaced by machines

THE TOP 3 THINGS WE ALL NEED MORE OF

1. Clouds. The cloud world is still largely dominated by a few key players, regardless of where you are located in the world. Increased diversity and more niche clouds would really benefit certain use cases, whilst at the same time fulfilling the necessary local legislatory requirements for data storage. While large cloud suppliers offer a simple and scalable platform, the risk of lock-in should never be ignored.

2. Sustainability. Recent reports clearly show that overall CO2 emissions have not increased at pre-pandemic rates, even with an increase in COVID-19 related network traffic. This is a good sign, but as an industry, we need to do much more. Initiatives such as certifying data centers with a “fossil free data” label are a good start, but there are many more steps we can take to make our industry much more sustainable. Overall power consumption is still rising each year as new gear is installed, despite all efforts to lower the number of kWh consumed per Gb/s of network capacity.

3. Disaggregation. As open line systems in the optical world become more commonplace, we still see many proprietary systems being rolled out. If we truly want to have an SDN-led world, with simple system orchestration, we need to decouple hardware from software, transponders from line systems and ultimately make everything a pluggable device that can be easily moved or upgraded. 2021 will be the year when we see fully disaggregated deployments everywhere.

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THE TOP 3 UNSUNG HEROES

1. Delivery teams in a pandemic. When the world shutdown and countries closed their borders, we desperately needed our networks to keep running, and to sustain (or even increase) the pace of upgrades and expansion to carry the additional load. A lot of carrier upgrade and maintenance work can be done remotely from an engineer’s home but adding new cards in a DWDM shelf or a new port in a router needs someone on site. Accessing network sites during extreme travel restrictions and local lockdowns is very difficult, but when people risk their lives to do it, it is heroic.

2. The VPN administrator. Ensuring access to company systems and workflows for a limited number of remote staff was a relatively easy task for an IT support engineer in normal circumstances. Making sure that an entire company can work from home on a secure VPN connection during a pandemic is an entirely different ball game. We have many people to thank for keeping us connected this year.

3. The rest of your family. During a year when most of us in the telecom industry had to work from home, we need to spare a thought for our families who had to endure the constant flow of jargon-infested language we use on a daily basis. NGFW, OPGW and XWDM are all but a few new ‘words’ we try to make sound normal in daily online Zoom or Teams meetings from our living rooms or kitchens. This, in combination with the already unanswerable question, “What do you actually make or do?” has made 2020 a very strange year indeed.

Predictions are of course just predictions, and we wish everyone in the telecom ecosystem – from business partners to end users and the companies in between, a brighter year ahead, with health and prosperity. One thing is certain though, 2021 will be full of excitement and change. As we always say here at Telia Carrier, “You can’t predict the future, but you can be ready!” STF With over 20 years in the telecommunications industry, MATTIAS FRIDSTRÖM can be considered a veteran – but his enthusiasm hasn’t faded.

Mattias combines expert knowledge with anecdotes from behind the scenes and deep insight into the networked economy: What are the challenges of tomorrow for network providers? How can we meet ever-increasing traffic demand and customer quality expectations within the same cost frame?

Mattias holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wollongong, Australia. Since joining Telia in 1996, he has worked in a number of senior roles within Telia Carrier and most recently as CTO. Since July 2016 he is Telia Carriers Chief Evangelist.

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FEATURE

PTC 2021 AND BEYOND

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hat started in 1978 (incorporated in 1980) as a forum for the interchange of ideas regarding telecommunications by several University of Hawaii professors along with others in the US, Japan and Mexico in particular, has grown into a conference with over 8000 participants each year attending from all corners of the globe. Achieving continuous significant growth over the past years, PTC has always remained true to its non-profit core and its members.

As we move beyond COVID-19 and what has been and, unfortunately, continues to be a very challenging environment for our friends and colleagues in the industry, we at PTC are planning for the future and are in the midst of refining our five-year vision.

COVID-19 has obviously presented the PTC Secretariat with challenges in the context of delivering a valuable PTC’21 experience; however, it also provides us with some key learnings and an opportunity for reflection upon what our members see as the core deliverables and values that PTC offers to its members and the wider telecommunications ecosystem in general.

As we look beyond 2021, the key elements of PTC that are being fine-tuned can largely be broken down into the following four areas: outreach, education, connections, and expansion. Before we talk about our key future focus areas, it is worth mentioning some of the foundational attributes at the core of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, which remain constant and very strong.

PTC’s intrinsic values include diversity and gender equality in the Secretariat, the Board of Governors, and the Advisory Council. PTC has and will always encourage future leaders

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who can bring vitality to the organization to get involved via the various avenues that have been created to enable member’s voices to be heard, such as participation in committees, the Advisory Council and the Board of Governors. As an organization whose leadership is made up of its members, these leadership teams certainly provide a unique opportunity for those who are interested in helping to shape the future of the organization.

One of PTC’s major strengths has always been the experience of the Secretariat and CEO, combined with the guidance from its strong, diverse leadership team. It makes perfect sense. An organization managed by its members for the Members will always have nothing but the best interests of its Members at heart. Coupling the above with PTC’s non-profit status ensures that the focus is squarely on delivering benefits for its members and the broader community.

Beyond 2021, there are some focus areas that have been identified as key in ensuring our continued success as the preeminent membership organization in our space. These include membership benefits, which are currently being evaluated with the aim of adding additional value where possible including new membership categories; outreach programs, expanding the now accredited PTC Academy format to a broader audience and in varying formats (in person and virtual); the PTC Projects program offering the opportunity to develop and implement projects that promote the use of telecommunications and ICT to improve the quality of life in the Asia-Pacific region; the new monthly webinar series led by industry leaders who address key issues and breakthrough ideas and emerging innovation and lastly, revamping the Young Scholar Program. Continuing to make improvements on the overall conference experience, such as offering a

broader range of industry speakers from congruent industries, and finally, expanding the ecosystem of organizations that engage with PTC by incentivizing organizations involved in the mobile, content, cloud, PE, M&A, and start-up space to get involved. A unique feature of PTC’s membership and the ecosystem is the involvement of research and academia. All of these initiatives will most certainly ensure that value is being consistently delivered to our members.

Like most organizations, PTC has a mission statement that it lives and breathes – to advance the ethical development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT). PTC accomplishes its mission through collaboration, knowledge, and outreach. To further expand and provide some insight on our mission, it can best be described as follows:

1: OUTREACH

Leverage our resources and connections to improve the lives of people in our regions with sustainable benefits.

This directly highlights the non-profit character of the Pacific Telecommunications Council. It keeps us focused on the initial goal of PTC to improve the quality of lives of people in the Pacific region. Due to the increased geographic scope of PTC over the years and membership across multiple regions around the world, the formulation of this mission enables us to highlight and focus on various regional aspects.

2: KNOWLEDGE

Encourage and develop relevant knowledge, guidance, and intelligence on technologies and opportunities in ICT. We encourage education, research, and the sharing of ideas As previously mentioned, continually seeking ways to improve membership benefits is a key strategic initiative for PTC over the coming years, in order to continue to be an important driver of the industry. By focusing on these aspects, it reinforces PTC’s positioning as a key driver and leading light of the telecommunications industry. PTC also aims to increase awareness for emerging trends in the telecommunications industry from a neutral perspective. Increasing the diversity of those that attend PTC (ecosystem) enables us to act as an independent forum for the industry by raising awareness, providing education platforms, and spreading knowledge and opportunities across its members and a wider range of segments in our industry.

3: COLLABORATE

Provide a unique platform for global ICT business leaders

and academics to connect and establish long-lasting relationships.

PTC’s Annual Conference offers a unique atmosphere and environment.

Members and conference participants inevitably end up establishing long-lasting relationships beyond business networking, due to its relaxed atmosphere and location in Hawaii. “Aloha” is more than a greeting. The Aloha spirit is embodied in everything we do and is the coordination of mind and heart within each person.

4: EXPAND

Further grow a global membership of experts and influential professionals, which represents equality and diversity.

Over the coming years, the Pacific Telecommunications Council will leverage its global reach and attract new members from across the globe. The aim is to expand the membership base to include those from industries associated with telecommunications in order to achieve a broader context of what’s happening in our industry. The “Aloha Spirit” and inclusive nature of PTC helps in developing and growing a diverse membership base.

For most executives in our industry, the Pacific Telecommunications Council has been a part of our lives since our careers in telecommunications began. There has never been an organization to replicate PTC on many levels, be it the engagement and networking environment, the learning experiences, and, of course, the lifelong friendships that have been fostered simply due to the existence of PTC. Considering that only approximately half of the world’s population is connected, collectively as an industry, we still have a long way to go with significant untapped potential ahead of us. PTC’s aim is to continue to play a pivotal role in bringing people from within our industry together so that we can tackle the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead in concert with leveraging off of the relationships and learnings gained by being part of PTC. The Pacific Telecommunications Council is incredibly well-positioned in the industry and although it can look back at a successful 40-plus-year history, rest assured that we do not intend to rest on our laurels. We will continue to evolve in parallel with our industry and its ever-changing landscape to ensure that membership not only increases but expands into a broader range of associated industries that we in the telecommunications industry collaborate with.

We do hope that you enjoyed PTC’21: New Realities and we look forward to seeing you all in person in Honolulu next year. Aloha! STF JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE

DATA CENTERS: ‘CARBON PROCESSING UNITS’ AND GREEN SOLUTION PROVIDERS?

BY DEREK WEBSTER

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o data centres & ICT stand in the way of global environmental goals, or are they already enabling our green future? Derek Webster says it’s time to look at the facts “When I went to school, I had books and access to a library. My children went to school with laptops and access to the Internet”, is a favourite line I use as often as I can to demonstrate the effect of the ‘Digital Revolution’.

In 1989, when the World Wide Web was given free to the world, the global population was 5.2bn and annual global fossil CO2 emission stood at 22.3 gigatonnes. 30 years later, with the internet covering almost every inch of the globe, 7.7bn of us live on Earth and global emissions stand at 33 gigatonnes.

Even though these are significant and startling rises of 48% and 35%, respectively (2017 & 2018 saw sharp CO2 declines according to the IEA), taken together they illustrate a 10% per capita CO2 reduction over that period – and carbon dioxide accounts for 65% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. When dissecting the impact of the Digital Revolution on the environment, Population, energy source and use are key.

Digitalisation is transforming the value chain with in-

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creased efficiency, productivity, quality and competitiveness.

But the digital revolution has also affected social, economic and behavioural changes, with significant carbon, environmental and sustainability impacts.

ICT has also revolutionised the collecting and processing of green data, helping us understand the changing world we live in. Conversely, information about how much ICT & digitisation growth has helped, in part, off-set our carbon use, is rare. This article will not answer that macro question.

But it will provide insight in terms of global CO2 usage, while acknowledging that 38% of the world’s population are not internet users (as of June 2020).

CLOUD COMPARISONS

Digital infrastructure and particularly data centres are often compared to the aviation industry. Aircraft reach actual clouds while data centres are ‘the cloud on the ground’; where the silk threads of the web – fibre and connectivity – connect.

The intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that aviation is responsible for about 3.5% of anthropogenic climate change (change caused by human activity). Airline pollution, including CO2 and

water vapour at high-altitude, impacts global warming more than pollution on the ground.

As a comparable, according to the International Energy Agency, data centres consumed less than 1% of global electricity demand in 2019 and, as of 2018, were responsible for 0.3% of global carbon emissions.

In 2019, data transmission networks were responsible for circa 1% of energy consumed globally.

Even though digital workloads have increased 550% since 2010, power demand has levelled in the last 6 years. Aviation on the other hand saw a 21% rise in CO2 over the last 4 years to 2018, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Other sources show a similar picture. Global e-sustainability (GeSI) stated that the ICT sector was responsible for 2.3% of emissions in 2020. The GeSI figure in 2015 was 1.4-2%.

The aviation industry represents around 3.6% of global GDP. The digital economy is 22.5% of global GDP according to Oxford Economics, while the UNCTAG 2019 report states that the Digital Economy ranges from 4.5% to 15.5% as a proportion of countries’ GDPs. Is digital infrastructure and aviation a fair comparison?

As data centre facilities leverage more efficient infrastructure and source power from increasingly greener energy sources, we are seeing a greener Hyperscale Energy Shift: In 2014, approximate data centre energy usage was as follows – traditional data centres 55%, cloud-based 30%, and hyperscale data centres 15%. In 2018, from 200TWh global usage, traditional data centres were responsible for 20% of the energy used, cloud-based 35%, and hyperscale data centres 45%.

This trend is significant: In 2016, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL-1005775) estimated that if 80% of US servers in smaller data centres migrated into hyperscale facilities, energy usage falls by 25 percent. Another

fact often overlooked is that the technology and communications sectors dominate corporate agreements to purchase renewable electricity.

COVID-19 IMPACT

It’s a critical time for critical infrastructure. The global economy is set to shrink by 6% with 20% fewer energy investments due to the unfortunate global Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, we are seeing some interesting changes to digital infrastructure usage.

A new study by Website Builder Expert noted that internet usage is up 70%, with online streaming showing an 85% increase. According to Nokia, aggregated data volumes are 25% above pre-Covid levels, Vodafone have seen voice & data demand surge by 50%.

Covid-19 has shown us that existing digital infrastructure has the inherent capacity to change how we work while making us more reliant on ICT (and thus increasing its criticality).

How have these rises impacted electricity and carbon emissions? The GSM Association (which represents 750 mobile telecom operators) provided the following commentary: • Telefonica in Spain has seen 35% data increases without significant electricity/carbon emissions.

• Telia Nordic & Baltics have seen 20% increase in traffic with 1% more electricity use from its 90% renewable energy (100% expected in 2020).

• British Telecom (BT) in the UK has seen 100% increase in daytime broadband for the same energy use from its 92% renewable energy.

• London telecom networks have seen energy consumption and carbon use mostly unchanged.

Covid-19 has shown us that existing digital infrastructure has the inherent capacity to change how we work while making us more reliant on ICT (and thus increasing its criticality). In March 2020, CO2 in New York fell by 10% and in Paris by an incredible 72%. New York researchers told the BBC that early results have shown carbon JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE monoxide mainly from cars was down 50% compared to 2019 levels.

The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology stated that in some British cities’ pollution was down 60% during lockdown. 87% of UK citizens currently working from home said they would like to continue to do so ‘to some degree’.

Should that happen that represents 17m people continuing with remote or some form of flexible working. The numbers are still to be collected and crunched, but indications suggest a more flexible working lifestyle with reduced commutes and lower office occupations might be one feature of “the new normal”.

ICT AT THE CORE OF THE GREEN AGENDA

GeSI states that ICT can reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 20% versus a ‘no change’ approach by 2030 (equivalent to holding emissions to 2015 levels), providing $11tn in new economic and social benefits and an estimated 30% increase in agriculture yields for less water.

GeSI also predicts that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will reduce GHG by 4% in 2030 — the combined emissions of Australia, Canada and Japan.

Google already uses AI to reduce data centre energy by 15%, with a 6% reduction in cooling.

Indeed, GeSI has been vocal for some time about how digital technologies can dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and global warming potential (GWP). In the future, they predict transformative reductions thanks to digitalisation.

Impact on CO2 emissions (tonnes) • E-commerce: -1bn • Virtual meetings and remote working: -0.5bn • Smart Grid: -2bn • Smart motors: -0.97 • Smart buildings: -1.7bn • Transportation: -1.52bn

agriculture and land use, buildings, services, transportation (21% of current emissions) and traffic management.

WEF also sights 5G as the next ‘exponential’ technology, with data speeds 10 to 100 times faster over 4G, all while consuming less energy (around 90 percent less energy per/ bit than 4G.)

MORE ABOUT THOSE DATA CENTRES:

The cloud on the ground is seeing organisations increasingly move workloads from less efficient on-premises data centres to more efficient colocation and cloud data centres in more sustainable locations for operations.

Corporate board rooms are turning greener to combat climate change and take responsibility while increasing brand value. The data centre sector has consistently exhibited self-regulating continual improvements in regards to best practice and energy; The European Code of Conduct (ECoC), the standard EN 50600 series (information technology – data centre facilities and infrastructure) are good examples and great resources to abide by.

Another is ‘The Open Compute Project’ (OCP) / Foundation, a data centre industry collective in part ‘reimagining compute hardware, making it more efficient, flexible and scalable’. We are now at server and rack level. OCP shows how you can obtain more efficient, focused equipment for less. For example, on average 1 OCP Hyperscaler server (not limited to Hyperscaler use) could replace 3.75 servers in a conventional data centre.

Facebook claims OCP kit has saved them $1.2bn in its first 3 years and Microsoft runs over 90% of their hardware as OCP. OCP has a project called OCP TIP (Telco Infra Project), which in 2018 saved enough energy to power 80,000 homes per annum, with carbon reductions of about 400,000 metric tons which is the equivalent of taking 95,000 cars off the road per year, according to Facebook.

We have seen that around 50% of data centre energy use comes from the Hyperscalers. Here’s how some are doing.

• Google (5.5GW renewable energy): In 2017 announced 100% renewable energy across its data centres and operations. 40% of this is via renewable energy power purchase

Corporate board rooms are turning greener to combat climate change and take responsibility while increasing brand value.

The data centre sector has consistently exhibited self-regulating continual improvements in regards to best practice and energy.

These findings are echoed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which states that digital technology can cut global emissions by 15%. Adding that connectivity will be a key enabler, through solutions in energy, manufacturing,

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agreements. Google claims that all data processed via Google Cloud has zero net carbon emissions. Some data centres still use fossil fuels yet are off-set via Renewable Energy Credits (REC), these are in essence a token that represents a green energy generation utility. Google is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy.

• Microsoft Azure (1.9GW renewable energy): Microsoft claims its data centres have been using 100% reusable energy since 2014, 60% renewable the remaining in REC. It has invested in multiple hydropower purchase agreements.

• Amazon Web Services (1.6GW renewable energy).

Amazon (2018) announced 50% renewable energy use with remaining REC. in 2019 Greenpeace reported that Amazon has abandoned its 100% commitment by expanding operations by 59% without renewable energy. Amazon states 100% renewable is still its ambition.

could perform per Watt 100x or 1,000x more for 10x or 100x less energy and nearly zero heat generation from CPU activity? What if you could store all of the world’s data in the volume of a candy bar, maybe even in glass for 10,000 years?

We need not look any further than Photonic Computer/ CPU, Carbon Nanotubes/CPU and DNA Storage. All three are existing and proven, yet that is not the same as ready to market for widespread adoption. These are potentially game changing innovations and vastly reduce the predominant and majority user of data centre energy – the ‘servers’ – and all but eliminate bulk cooling requirements.

GREEN CAPACITY OF CHANGE

Climate change is a reality and the evidence of anthropogenic climate change is unequivocal and overwhelming. We have seen in this article that ICT, data centres and digital infrastructure have a solid platform to drive carbon reduction while showing investment opportunities and the ability to be part of a sustainable solution.

From its 2.3% emission the sectors can drive a 10x multiple (circa 20%) carbon reduction by 2030.

There is also a growing belief that, at a macro perspective, large ICT implementations have a few years of lag before positive effects of lower CO2 emissions.

It is the responsibility of governments and enterprises to help secure a sustainable future and take responsible action through leadership, insight, decisiveness and innovation towards the best possible future.

Today it is Population, Energy source and Use that are key, from here on we need to add Deliverable Integrated Infrastructure Driving Change. Yes, ICT and data centres are very much part of that realm. STF

The estimated reduction in heating costs for residents is 5% and the project has reduced utilities’ provision of gas consumption by half.

The collaboration with the city allows Yandex to cut data centre electricity expenditure by up to a third.

There are also an increasing number of data centre projects reusing waste energy or heat. The Nordic region in particular has existing infrastructure, making reuse of energy into CHP systems more easily accessible.

An example of ‘Combined Data & Heat (CDH) is Yandex’s project in Mäntsälä, Finland. Yandex, the world’s 5th largest search engine, supplies hot water from its data centre to Mäntsälä City, assisting the reduction of the city’s CO2 emissions by up to 40%. The estimated reduction in heating costs for residents is 5% and the project has reduced utilities’ provision of gas consumption by half.

The collaboration with the city allows Yandex to cut data centre electricity expenditure by up to a third.

FUTURE TECH ON THE HORIZON

Currently we are reaching the limit to how far we can go with silicon and the issue of heat generation at the chip.

“We’re up against the limits of shrinkage,” says Jonathan Koomey, a California-based IT consultant. Achieving comparable efficiency gains will require a revolution in how hardware is built and computing is done. “It’s basically impossible to predict,” he says.

‘What if ’ is a great question, period! Yet ‘what if ’ you

DEREK WEBSTER is CEO at Andget and a Data Centre sector consultant, advisory, client principle & advocate and Speaker. He has over 25+years sector experience, leading teams and delivering global digital infrastructure, strategy and solutions. He spans the gambit working with clients from funding rounds, pre-budget business case, DC strategy, market positioning, to country & site selection, design & build to delivery. He has worked with Hyperscalers, Global brands, Telecoms and enterprises. He has helped governments & development agencies to align and review their Foreign Direct Investors (FDI), attractiveness, ‘Value Propositions’ to their National offers.

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FEATURE FEATURE

SUBMARINE CABLE DESIGN LIFE LESSONS

A Case Study for Operating the Italy Greece-1 Repeaterless Cable System Beyond the Design Life

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hen UNIFI COMMUNICATIONS (UNIFI) completed its acquisition of WIS TELECOM (WIS) during 2016, the transaction included an existing submarine cable between Italy and Greece, known as the Italy Greece-1 (IG-1) fiber cable. For the past few years, while UNIFI has been restructuring WIS to improve the company’s basic financials, we have also been investigating the history and status of the IG-1 fiber cable. Unfortunately, due to its unusual origin alongside an undersea electrical power cable as shown below, IG-1 has never been utilized to its full potential.

Both the submarine electrical power cable and the IG-1 submarine fiber optic cable illustrated above were constructed by Pirelli in 1995 for TERNA, the largest independent electricity transmission system operator in Europe.

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BY BRIAN CRAWFORD

As a result, the IG-1 fiber cable does not have the traditional arrangements found with most undersea fiber cable systems, such as cable landing licenses issued by national (telecommunications) authorities, purpose-built beach landing facilities, and purpose-built cable stations. At the time, TERNA’s primary objective was the construction of the power cable from Italy to Greece, and the installation of the IG-1 fiber cable was secondary. In other words, the IG-1 fiber cable was built at the same time as the power cable to satisfy TERNA’s long-term internal communications needs for the power cable.

However, within the IG-1 cable, TERNA included plenty of extra fiber, which suggests they may have been planning to sell dark fiber to third parties. As it turned out, TERNA sold the entire IG-1 fiber cable to WIND Italy

and retained only a few fibers for their own internal use. At the time, TERNA made an agreement with WIND Italy to extend some of the fibers to reach WIND’s nearest Point of Presence (PoP) from the TERNA landing site, which primarily serves as TERNA’s electrical substation for the power cable. Subsequently, WIND Italy transferred the ownership of the IG-1 fiber cable to its subsidiary, WIS Telecom, which UNIFI later acquired. Unfortunately, as we soon discovered, WIND did not extend all of the spare IG-1 fibers out from the TERNA power substation, leaving many dark fibers stranded and unused at the landing facilities in Otranto, Italy, and Aethos, Greece. In addition to the aforementioned challenges, which make it difficult to determine the best strategy for unlocking the underlying value of this particular fiber network asset, the IG-1 fiber cable’s original operational end of life has just arrived. IG-1 is now 25 years old.

As most submarine cable industry veterans know, suppliers have forever been designing the submerged portion of the plant (or “wet plant”) to operate in the harsh marine environment for a duration of at least 25 years. This traditional 25-year operating duration, which is also known as the “Design Life” of the system, has been an industry standard lifecycle target for as long as anyone can remem-

ber. However, due to significant advances in technology, most cable systems have historically been decommissioned, or forced into retirement, due to market disadvantages or commercial obsolescence long before reaching their Design Life. As many industry veterans should recall, we once used to ask what cost reductions would be possible if the Design Life were shorter, since we had been installing technologically superior replacements every 10-15 years on similar routes. It was rare to reach the Design Life.

Commercial obsolescence was already a familiar and accepted phenomenon before my first position on the supply side of the industry with AT&T Submarine Systems, Inc. (or “ATT SSI”) in the early 1990s. By then, all of the old telegraph cables had already been phased out in favor of many generations of coaxial cables. Also, most coaxial cables had already been replaced with first generation optical fiber systems that used optical regenerators also known as repeaters. After my initial fiber jointing training from ATT SSI, my first field engineering assignment was the cable installation and jointing of the TAINO-CARIB cable system on the British Virgin Island of Tortola, the United States Virgin Island of St. Thomas, and the United States Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The original Ready For Service (RFS) date for TAINO-CARIB was December 1992 and JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE included the four repeaterless cable segments shown below.

In the mid-1990s, optical amplifiers were fitted into the repeater housings of long-haul submarine systems, and when combined with the latest and greatest Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology, most of the commercial obsolescence and Design Life paradigms in submarine cable industry were turned upside down.

These technological breakthroughs made network capacity increases feasible via terminal equipment changes, but without any wet plant changes. As a result, each new round of improved terminal equipment technology almost automatically increases the design capacity of many optically amplified and repeaterless cable systems today. The magnitude of change that has been realized in the submarine cable industry as the result of these technological innovations cannot be overstated.

Over the past 30 years, the single-channel data transmission rate on an optical fiber has increased from 2.5 Gbps in the late 1980s to more than 400 Gbps today, or a data rate increase of about 160 times.

In parallel, single channel per fiber designs have shifted to more than 200 channels (or colors of light) per fiber using the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies that were developed over the same time duration. In total, single fiber data transmission capacity has increased from 2.5 Gbps in 1989 to over 32 Tbps per fiber, or over 10,000 times presently. Unfortunately for our industry, the killer bandwidth demand application (or device) to help drive this remarkable advancement of technology did not arrive when the market originally expected, as shown by the chart below.

Those of us that lived through the three-decade roller coaster ride shown above will immediately recognize the industry’s peak investment period near the turn of the century. Pacific Gateway Exchange (PGE) was my employer at the time, and we were simultaneously investing heavily (for such a small company) in both JAPAN-US and TAT-14 during 1998-1999 before the wholesale voice market crashed in 2000, which resulted in the disastrously quick bankruptcy of PGE in 2001. My next employer, New World Network, the primary developer and owner of the ARCOS-1 fiber network in the Caribbean region, fell victim to the extreme market uncertainty of 2004, only

to be revived as Columbus Networks in 2005, and is now called C&W Networks, a Liberty Latin America company. In the early 2000s, bandwidth demand forecasts drove speculative investments and submarine cable construction activity to the highest level ever recorded, but the bubble burst when the bandwidth demand projections at the time did not materialize. The iPhone, which came along in 2007, and similar network-connected “smart devices” created afterward, have become the submarine cable industry’s killer bandwidth demand source. Collectively, all of these smart devices, and the networked software applications they support, are fueling the development of most new cable systems today.

Indeed, it would be difficult to argue that AT&T’s iPhone introduction in 2007, and AT&T’s subsequent mobile data traffic upsurge, was just a coincidence. In fact, when AT&T issued their 2019 annual report, they stated “Data traffic on our mobile network has grown more than 470,000% since 2007 with video making up half of our mobile data traffic.” Although AT&T did not specifically recognize the smart phone as the primary source of mobile data demand in this announcement, it seems evident because 2007 was the year that AT&T launched Apple’s iPhone. Now it is unlikely that anyone would disagree that “smart devices” are the submarine cable industry’s long-awaited killer bandwidth demand source. Although this source of demand arrived almost one decade later than expected, mobile data has clearly become the main driver for practically all newly constructed cables and bandwidth (capacity) increases (or upgrades) on existing cables in recent years.

As previously implied, this study draws upon my experience with cable system supplier AT&T Submarine Systems (now SubCom) as an installation engineering supervisor, and also on my experience while representing cable owners, including AT&T Communications, Pacific Gateway Exchange, New World Network (now C&W Networks), and WIS Telecom (through UNIFI Communications), in executive management roles. After spending nearly three decades in the industry, my lessons learned about submarine cable Design Life will hopefully prove beneficial to others. Accordingly, my submarine cable system Design Life lessons learned are provided below:

Over the past 30 years, the single-channel data transmission rate on an optical fiber has increased from 2.5 Gbps in the late 1980s to more than 400 Gbps today, or a data rate increase of about 160 times.

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LESSON #1 – BARRING DISTURBANCES FROM EXTERNAL FORCES, SUBMARINE CABLES CAN REMAIN OPERABLE WELL BEYOND 25 YEARS.

To predict the potential (or extended) lifespan of an undersea cable segment, an experienced cable engineer would most certainly look for historical examples and/or empirical evidence to support operation beyond the Design Life.

Accordingly, the “Guinness World Record” award for submarine cable segment operating longevity would probably be difficult to determine, because, as previously mentioned, most cables do not reach Design Life before retirement or replacement. However, per my recollection, there was an old coaxial submarine cable segment between Cuba and the United States that would likely be a strong contender and possibly the winner, if such an award were presented. This particular coaxial submarine cable segment was brought to my attention while employed at AT&T Communications as the Director of International Cable Planning – Americas Region during 1996-1998. While leading the development efforts for AMERICAS-II, my colleagues told me about the history of the coaxial cable segment that linked the United States with Cuba. According to my former AT&T colleagues, part of TAT-3 was recovered and reinstalled during 1989 between West Palm Beach, Florida and Cojimar, Cuba, but that TAT-3 segment had been operational for 24 years from 1963 until 1986, before being recovered.

After reinstallation, the TAT-3 cable segment replaced the one operational cable link between the United States and Cuba that failed in 1987, leaving only an old AT&T troposcatter link. The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) gave AT&T specific

permission to install a comparable replacement cable, which is why TAT-3 was selected.

Years later, while employed by Pacific Gateway Exchange as Director of International Networks during 1999-2000, one of my former AT&T colleagues invited me and my then current employer to participate in an effort to construct an undersea fiber cable to Cuba. During the meetings about this potential Cuba fiber cable, the second half of the TAT-3 for Cuba cable story was shared with me. According to an industry colleague, the TAT-3 cable segment between West Palm Beach and Cojimar was still operational, until the Cuban government intentionally shut off the terminal equipment at the Cojimar cable landing station in 1999. Cuban government officials blamed the cable shut down on a dispute over money owed to the Cuban communications company, Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA) from US carriers.

As the result of earlier legal wrangling, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and other US carriers had been ordered to withhold payments from ETECSA for the termination of voice traffic to Cuba. In 1996, a Cuban aircraft shot down two planes that were searching for Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits, killing four members of the Miami organization Brothers to the Rescue. This is what prompted the families of the fliers to sue the Cuban Air Force and the Republic of Cuba, resulting in a judgment of $187 million in 1997, but they had no way to collect after Havana ignored the judgment. Consequently, they went to Federal court in Miami asking to seize Cuban assets in the United States, including the money owed to the Cuban Government by all of the American companies that had been providing long-distance telephone service to Cuba.

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submarine cable political lessons, which could be another subject for another time, since there are large volumes of political hazards, obstacles, and risks for rewards to discuss. Anyway, at the time ETECSA was forced to shut down the cable between West Palm Beach and Cojimar in 1999, the redeployed TAT-3 segment had been operational for 11 additional years from 1989 until 1999, without failure. Therefore, it appears that the undersea cable segment from TAT-3 was successfully operated without failure for an overall duration of 35 years. To my knowledge, this is the longest duration that an undersea cable segment has ever been operational, but there are other recovered cable segments still in operation that may soon match or exceed this record.

In any case, recovery and redeployment is not the only case where submarine cables can remain operable beyond their original Design Life. For instance, due to both ongoing technological advances and the insatiable bandwidth demand mentioned earlier, the industry is now witnessing cable owners proposing to “renew” licenses, permits, and/or operational agreements to extend the Design Life of their cable systems for another 25 years. In fact, AT&T currently has three (3) applications pending with the FCC which propose 25-year Design Life extensions for each respective cable system below: • TAINO-CARIB Landing License Renewal Notice, filed 2018-07-02 • AMERICAS-I Landing License Renewal Notice, filed 2019-03-26

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• COLUMBUS-II Landing License Renewal Notice, filed 2019-03-26 Coincidentally, the TAINO-CARIB and IG-1 cable systems have many similarities. Both cable systems do not have any repeaters, and they have similar optical fiber types, distances, etc. TAINO-CARIB includes 177km of cable and IG-1 consists of 171km in total cable distance. The RFS Date of TAINO-CARIB was during 1992, and the RFS Date of IG-1 was during 1997, which suggests that IG-1 should remain operable for at least 5 years longer than TAINO-CARIB. With or without an officially approved Design Life extension, there are many cable systems with an RFS Date in the 1990s that are already being operated beyond their original Design Life.

Therefore, since we’ve seen that other submarine cables are expected to remain operable for well beyond 25 years, it seems logical to conclude that the IG-1 cable will also be operable for another 25 years. However, unlike TAINO-CARIB, the IG-1 cable does not have any official landing license(s) issued by any national telecommunication’s authorities available to renew. Typically, the renewal of applicable landing licenses, permits, or other authorizations will always be dependent on the situation at each landing point on a case-by-case basis. In the case of IG1, we have renewed the cable system landing arrangements, which legally enables the continued operation of the IG-1 fiber cable beyond the original Design Life.

LESSON #2 – TECHNICAL CABLE DESIGN LIFE DEPENDS ALMOST ENTIRELY UPON THE PREDICTION OF FAULTS FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES.

Once one has seen the remnants of an old telegraph cable laying across the sharp edge of an undersea cable cutting grapnel, which is used for cable route clearance before cable burial (plowing) operations, it is easy to realize how corrosion can cause physical cable deterioration. When cable remnants are no longer physically able to support the weight of the cable itself during a repair, then it is reasonable to conclude that the cable has reached its Design Life from a technical viewpoint. However, since almost all cable faults are caused by external physical disturbances, it is also reasonable to conclude that without any external physical disturbances, submarine cables will continue to operate far beyond the Design Life. This assumes that the cable was installed correctly, and there are minimal physical disturbances during the initial 20 years of operation. In fact, “Studies have shown that properly installed fiber will only have a chance of failure at a rate of 1 in 100,000 per kilometer per year between years 20 and 40 after installation.” In other words, it is very rare for physical deterioration alone to cause fiber cable outages, because in practice, external forces account for nearly every cable outage.

As previously mentioned, virtually all cable faults are caused by external physical disturbances, but without system spares, including cable, jointing materials, and repeater (optical amplifier) housings, etc., submarine cable system faults cannot be repaired, and normal operation cannot resume. In other words, depending upon the availability of spares, the expected submarine cable system Design Life would need to be shortened or lengthened to account for the quantity of spares on hand.

Therefore, any realistic technical analysis proposing to extend the Design Life must determine if the system spares on hand are sufficient to repair any forecasted cable faults during any proposed extended operations duration. This suggests that the quantity of IG-1 system spares and future repairs will need to be determined to make this study meaningful. With such quantities, it can then be determined, from a technical standpoint, if operating the IG-1 cable system beyond the original Design Life is feasible or not.

In the case of IG-1, three repairs were made during the first 12 years of operation, and no repairs have been made during the past 13 years. However, if repairs are needed in the future, then the IG-1 has 3,784 meters of spare SA cable and 2,000 meters of spare DA cable in storage at the depot. These quantities are sufficient to repair IG-1 anywhere along the cable route, for at least as many times as the IG-1 cable has been repaired to date. Ultimately, since IG-1 has enough spare cable on hand, it is not necessary to procure additional cable from the supplier. This is fortunate because the original IG-1 cable supplier, which was formerly known as Pirelli Cables & Systems, was absorbed into Prysmian Cables & Systems in 2005, which could make procuring additional cable difficult. The absence of faults during the past 13 years suggests that IG-1 will not likely need another repair anytime soon. Therefore, because IG-1 has not had any faults from external sources for such a long time, the possibility of extending the IG-1 Design Life by another 25 years is not unreasonable.

In the case of IG-1, three repairs were made during the first 12 years of operation, and no repairs have been made during the past 13 years. However, if repairs are needed in the future, then the IG-1 has 3,784 meters of spare SA cable and 2,000 meters of spare DA cable in storage at the depot.

LESSON #3 – COMMERCIAL CABLE DESIGN LIFE DEPENDS ON MARKET FORCES, INCLUDING UTILIZATION, DEMAND, AND COMPETITION.

In our industry, the Design Life of virtually every cable system will eventually be superseded by commercial realities, because new cable systems typically operate more cost-effectively, and new cable systems can be specifically designed to satisfy new market opportunities. Very often, existing cable systems will become commercially obsolete before the technical Design Life expires because existing cables have existing limitations which cannot easily change with market conditions. Things like the geographic route, bandwidth demand, cable landing arrangements, O&M (operations and maintenance) costs, fiber attenuation, network latency, and backhaul network options, etc., can each cause limitations that impact bandwidth utilization, customer demand, and competitiveness in the marketplace.

An obvious physical limitation like the geographic route of an existing cable system could be extremely cost prohibitive to change unless the change is minor. For example, one minor change that could create a huge benefit might be to extend or reroute an existing submarine cable from JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE an original Beach Manhole (BMH) to an alternate BMH in order to regain access that was too restrictive or costly at the original BMH. However, for the case where an existing cable system is unable to support additional bandwidth demand, perhaps due to unacceptable fiber characteristics such as significant attenuation in an older unrepairable cable, then resolving network access issues may not be worthwhile.

In my view, a more rigorous analytical approach is preferable because such an analysis may reveal that an unlimited future bandwidth capability, seemingly unlocked by optical amplifiers, higher transmission rates, and/or other new technological innovations, will not be enough to prevent commercial obsolescence. For example, unreasonably priced backhaul might be unavoidable. In any case, decisions to extend the commercial cable Design Life should not ignore any existing limitation that may impede bandwidth utilization or create any uncontrollable costs. Ideally, such decisions will be based upon a market study that analyzes all applicable market forces on a case-by-case basis for any given cable system, and then specific solutions to overcome or remove any existing limitations can be investigate With respect to the commercial cable Design Life of IG-1, an analysis of the market reveals both favorable and unfavorable market forces. On the favorable side, the IG-1 fiber cable does appear to have some customer demand with quotation requests pending, it does not have any repeaters which might prevent capacity increases, it has many unused dark fibers available for new bandwidth services, it has not needed any repairs for at least the past 13 years, and if there were any cable faults, it has sufficient system spares to perform multiple repairs. On the unfavorable side, the IG-1 fiber cable has landing sites that are not easily accessible, and it does have some competition between Italy and Greece, since there are other optical network options available for data transport service between Italy and Greece.

Fortunately, most of these unfavorable issues and limitations can be overcome, and we have recently made significant progress with our decision to purchase dark fiber backhaul connectivity between the Otranto cable landing location and Bari, Italy. This allows us to offer 100Gb service directly between Aetos, Greece, and Bari, Italy, as we continue to investigate the possibility of additional dark fiber purchases that will extend our reach to Milan, Italy,

or Athens, Greece. Incidentally, we are also able to offer 100Gb connections between Tirana, Albania, and Bari, due to the close proximity of the Albanian border with our Aetos terminal point in Greece.

With the ability to offer 100Gb connections in multiple markets, we feel that the IG-1 fiber cable is poised to provide Greece, Albania, Turkey, Bulgaria, and other distant locations with a new lower latency route to many Western European network access points and data centers. Therefore, the commercial cable Design Life can be reasonably extended because we’re adapting IG-1 to satisfy current market forces and reach new markets.

LESSON #4 – ORIGINAL LANDING LICENSE APPLICATIONS SHOULD REQUEST AN EXTENDED DESIGN LIFE FROM THE BEGINNING.

In many countries, applying for an original landing license for a new submarine cable system landing is an expensive and time-consuming process, especially when the cable landing station and landing facilities must be developed first. Planning, licensing, and permitting alone can literally take years to complete long before construction can begin.

As an example, the development of a new cable landing station in South Florida was one of my initial assignments after becoming the Director of International Cable Planning for the Americas at AT&T Communications. We anticipated that three new submarine cable systems would soon need somewhere new to land and connect. After first obtaining comprehensive information about all of the real estate holdings of AT&T anywhere near the coast, and conducting surveys at some of the prime locations, one of my most time-consuming tasks was the commissioning of specific desktop studies.

With assistance from various legal and civil engineering consultants, many different desktop feasibility studies were performed to help further reduce the number of options during the selection process.

Some of the more complicated feasibility studies included (1) an extensive study of federal, state, and local regulatory statutes to determine the best location(s) with respect to the easiest licensing and permitting for both construction and operations; (2) an engineering study to determine the most reliable cable station location based upon the 100-year flood plain, the availability of diverse electrical power sources, and historical natural disaster (hurricane) zones, etc.; (3) the development of environmental impact

With respect to the commercial cable Design Life of IG-1, an analysis of the market reveals both favorable and unfavorable market forces.

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assessments and mitigation plans; and (4) the completion of network assessments to establish the best locations for domestic network interconnection. After completing many months of desktop studies, my recommendation was to convert an existing AT&T switching and call center facility, known as OJUS, into a new cable landing station in Hollywood, Florida. Such extensive planning time, effort, and expense was not uncommon for new cable landing stations.

Even before the OJUS facility, my involvement in cable landing construction had taught me about many things that come after the initial planning.

In fact, the initial planning for a new cable station is just the beginning. It is followed by even more extensive planning, including the development of detailed construction plans, engineering drawings for construction permits, and contracts for construction of the cable station and landing facilities, often including Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) operations for the installation of ocean conduits, etc. And finally, if done properly, the first cable landing license application is submitted with a cable landing corridor request for additional future cables. In my experience, the same process above was used to develop new landing stations or landing facilities in California, New York, and the US Virgin Islands, as well as some international locations during my nearly three decades of working in the industry.

Although the above explanation does not include many of the more detailed tasks, and it does not discuss the various levels of project risk, such as the risk that a critical license or permit application will be rejected, it will hopefully help show why asking for an extended operating duration from the beginning might be a good idea. With the extensive time, effort, and cost expended even before an actual cable is landed, it seems to me that we should be asking the authorities for the longest possible operating duration, and not just the 25-year Design Life. My suggestion would be that we ask for 50 years initially, or perhaps 25 years with an option for another 25 years. Either way, the need to operate submarine cables beyond their original Design Life seems to be growing.

In conclusion, if submarine cables are not disturbed by external forces, they can operate well beyond the Design Life, because optical fiber does not measurably deteriorate until disturbed, which makes the technical Design Life dependent almost entirely upon the prediction of faults from external sources. However, the commercial cable Design Life, which depends on market forces, including utilization, demand, and competition, cannot be ignored. As a result, to be on the safe side, original cable landing plans and applications should request an extended Design Life from the beginning.

If undisturbed, then we know that submarine cables will remain operable for well beyond 25 years, and we know that the IG-1 fiber cable has not been disturbed for over 13 years. We’ve seen from the FCC applications filed by AT&T that other submarine cables are planning to continue operating for an additional 25 years beyond their original 25-year Design Life. We know that one such cable system, TAINO CARIB, is very similar to the IG-1 fiber cable in many technical ways, and therefore, it seems that the IG-1 fiber cable should also be equally operable for another 25 years. To continue operating IG-1 beyond the Design Life, we have successfully renewed the cable landing arrangements for IG-1, and we’re adapting IG-1 to satisfy current market forces.

As a result, we expect 100Gb connections to be available on the IG-1 fiber cable for multiple markets initially, including Greece and Albania, and then eventually Turkey, Bulgaria, etc., which will create a new lower latency route from these locations to many Western European network access points and data centers within the next 90-120 days.

Therefore, this case study concludes that the operation of the Italy Greece-1 (IG-1) Repeaterless Cable System beyond the original Design Life is categorically feasible based on the submarine cable Design Life lessons described herein. STF BRIAN CRAWFORD, an industry veteran with nearly three decades of personal involvement in submarine cable systems, is one of the industry’s few qualified professionals that has served in both cable supplier and cable owner roles. Mr. Crawford currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Engineering Technology at the California State University Maritime Academy (“Cal Maritime”) while consulting occasionally on submarine cables. Prior to teaching Marine Engineering at Cal Maritime, Mr. Crawford worked ashore in 65+ countries and aboard many vessels at sea supporting submarine cable and other infrastructure programs with design, development, operations, and maintenance while serving in managerial and executive roles.

Before concentrating on submarine cables, Mr. Crawford earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree, with a Marine Systems Engineering major and Nuclear Engineering minor, from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, graduating in the top 15% of his class. While installing submarine cable systems worldwide, he earned his MBA degree from the University of Phoenix. Mr. Crawford has been certified as VoIP Telephone System Installer, and by the Project Management Institute as a Project Management Professional. He is an Eagle Scout, an Engineer-In-Training (EIT) in New Jersey, an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in New York, an EPA-certified (Section 608) Universal HVAC technician, an Open Water (PADI-certified) Diver, and he was once the Most Valuable Player for placing 2nd at the Collegiate Pistol National Championships. He currently holds an active United States Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Credential (USCG officer’s license), he advanced to the rank of LCDR in the United States Naval Reserve before being honorably discharged, and he speaks Japanese almost as well as English from previously residing in Japan.

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FEATURE PUBLISHER OF SUBSEA CABLE NEWS USES ARCGIS FOR INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND INTERACTIVE MAP PRODUCTION

BY JIM BAUMANN Republished with kind permission by Esri

T

he first transatlantic telegraph cable went live in 1858.

Using Morse code, messages were transmitted at a speed of roughly 2 minutes per character. During the succeeding years, hundreds of submarine cables were laid that now range more than 750,000 miles (1.2 million km) around the globe.

In the 1980s, submarine cable systems using optical fiber were developed and today they form the backbone of the internet because of their capability for high speed transmission. The MAREA cable, completed in 2017, stretches between Spain and the United States. It is currently the highest-capacity submarine cable in the world and is capable of transmitting data at 208 terabits per second.

Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. (STF) was founded in 2001. It publishes various journals and reports about the submarine cable industry. “STF is the news and research analysis outlet for the submarine fiber communications industry,” says Kieran Clark, Lead Analyst for Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. “We track the laying of new submarine telecommunications cable and analyze its impact on the industry in general. We are not affiliated with any suppliers, installers, or vendors. We are a neutral third party that provides an unbiased overview of the industry.”

STF has used Esri software for a number of years. They originally used ArcMap to create the maps that appear in their print publications.

“I am not a GIS analyst by trade and ArcMap was always a daunting piece of software for me to use,” says Clark. “However, ArcGIS Pro has made the capabilities of GIS much more accessible. We can do more data analysis and we are making use of web apps and the operational dashboards.”

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INTERACTIVE MAP DEPICTS REAL-TIME STATUS OF GLOBAL SUBSEA CABLE NETWORKS

Though 98 percent of the world’s internet runs on subsea cables, until STF began publishing their ArcGIS-based Submarine Cables of the World Interactive Map, the industry did not have access to a comprehensive map depicting this important information. STF uses a managed crowdsourcing effort for collecting data used in the map— all information and update recommendations are derived from the public domain by a company analyst.

“We draw new cable and their landing points for the map in ArcGIS Pro and then connect it to our submarine cable database, which has details on all of the major submarine cables in the world,” says Clark. “We currently have over 500 submarine cables that we track and have data on. So, we match that data to the lines representing the cables on the map so that when you click on the line, data about the cable can be accessed—who installed it, who built it, how much it costs, its capacity—that sort of thing. In addition, every 6 hours we pull the locations of all of the cable laying ships around the world from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) ship tracking service. So, at the moment we are updating the real-time locations of 46 cable ships. We use some automated scripts via ArcPython to automatically update the map on a regular basis and we have developed an Operations Dashboard around our map so that users can view and filter different data sets with just a few clicks.”

The cable routes depicted on the STF online map do not indicate the actual locations of the networks they represent.

The map is designed to allow viewers to easily discern the individual cables and their landing points. In actuality, cables that are laid in the same area take similar routes. These routes are determined by marine surveys to avoid hazardous conditions that might damage the cable.

Fiber optic cable is about the size of a garden hose and lays directly on the ocean floor. Though they are strong, and much care is taken in laying them, approximately 100 faults occur each year in submarine cable networks throughout the world. Because of the disruption in communications that is caused by a cable failure, redundancy is built into the networks, by spreading the transmitted data over a number of cables.

“Our map also includes over 1,700 data centers and their locations are plotted using their addresses, so we have a table that includes each data center, who owns it, and its address,” says Clark. “We put that into ArcGIS Pro, and it geocodes the whole thing and plots all of the addresses for us.

“These data centers aren’t specific to our industry. But, because of the importance of data centers to the communications industry, we plot them on the map, which is very useful. You can easily see the proximity of the data centers to the submarine cable networks. For example, if there seems to be data centers in places where there aren’t a lot of submarine cables coming on land, it gives us some idea on how the cable network could be expanded. Previously the data centers and submarine cable networks were somewhat independent of one another.

But, now the newer data centers are being built closer to the shore so that the submarine cables can quickly connect to the onshore cables and get to their specified networks more easily. Before, the cable would come ashore, and you would have to run a couple of hundred kilometers of fiber to get to a data center and from there you could access your network.

“Another Esri innovation that we have included in our production process is the StoryMap. This year, we published our annual report on the state of the submarine cable industry as a StoryMap. The report runs more than 100 pages and, by including dashboards, we could add some interactive charts and regional overviews—this brings a whole new dimension to publishing. In the past, the reports have been

done in a magazine format that was available as a pdf. It is downloaded about 500,000 times during the year and is regularly quoted throughout the industry.

“The information that we disseminate is widely used.

People in the submarine cable industry use it when they are looking for information on cables that are currently being laid, cables that are in service, or cables that are planned.

Analysts may want to determine the current status of a specific cable system. The maps we create are used for educational purposes by teachers and students, as well as others, to learn about the industry. Companies use our website when they want to put together reports about certain cables and make use of the information that we provide. ArcGIS Pro gives us the tools and flexibility to prepare our technical information in a dynamic manner and present it in a way that is easily understood.” STF JIM BAUMANN is a Writer at ESRI based in Redlands, California. He is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in the Field Of Study of Art.

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FEATURE

POLITICS OR PLANNING Which is Shaping the Network of the Future?

BY JOHN TIBBLES

J

ust under a year ago at Subnetwork’s World Europe (Forum?) in London I met a long time American colleague recently returned from PTC , I held out my hand to shake only to be told with a big smile-“Hey John , can’t do that anymore you know because of this business in China.” .

That was far from the last comment at the event but no one at the time had the least idea of what was to follow, let alone how it might affect our world . So, having written about how politics and subsea cables had interacted over thirty or more years enough has happened in just one to justify a reprise and so…………….

by internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. They carry almost all of our communications and yet in a world of wireless networking and smartphones we are barely aware they that exist’.

This growing awareness reached its peak in what became the Huawei issue, with the United States taking direct and aggressive steps to ensure no Huawei cables would land in America, a view that percolated to other parts of the world and ended with Huawei’s effective withdrawal from the subsea market.

Surely that was enough?

BEFORE THE PANDEMIC

Covid-19 brought our modern world, air travel and travel in general being the best examples, to a dead stop. Overnight governments closed borders, shut airports, brought in emergency regulations, enforced martial law, shut schools, colleges and entertainment venues. In fact in the West they had more effect on day to day life than forty years of a supposed communist threat to ‘our way of life’.

But being the ingenious creatures we are, when we are not doing stupid things to the planet or our fellows, humankind rapidly began to find a way around these problems and the enabler was the internet. And of course; what is essential to the global internet? Well, that would be submarine cables.

We turned to Zoom, Skype etc. to replace air travel or even our daily commute, to Amazon and online stores for our shopping needs and to Netflix and Prime for our leisure. Demand for interconnecting global capacity soared.

In my previous article I covered events that over time had highlighted the fact that subsea cables are a serious national and infrastructure asset. As such, interest in them from the political world came and went either in the form of lengthy regulatory soul searching as in days of carrier competition to much more dramatic and attention-grabbing situations like WikiLeaks. I explored how developments like these had led to some new entrants in the market and the fact that cable route choices were influenced by political and security considerations.

There were some interesting media features to comment on, like the National Interests magazine’s ‘Forget Nuclear Weapons, Cutting Undersea Cables could Decisively end a War’ and CNNs article about cable vulnerability which commented ‘ Underwater cables are the invisible force driving the modern internet, with many in recent years funded

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ENTER COVID-19

AROUND THE GLOBE, A TOUR DE HORIZON

In the Indian Ocean and China and India naturally seek to expand and their influence both on east-west routes and access to the African continent, the latter being the target of billions of dollars of investment from the PRC as it emerges from its peripheral digital past. Improved connectivity and technology bypass like 5G enable the continent to develop digital economies more comparable with their physical and population size. While connectivity has improved Africa still cannot reach the two global Internet giants USA and China directly and connectivity continues to follow traditional colonial paths, To summarise an extract from blog on the subject I found just today. ” Big Tech corporations are wreaking havoc on the Global South. There’s a crisis in the tech ecosystem, and it’s called digital colonialism.” will growing youthful tech savvy African populations feel comfortable with that?

A lessening of Middle East tensions allows new routes across the Middle East avoiding dependency on Egypt.

This will help economically but the new paths transit Israel, Americas closest regional ally with powerful technological capabilities. Will the two regional two superpowers be comfortable with links that are so transparently accessible to western security services?

The newest and most challenging east-west path is across the top of the world through the sub-polar Arctic seas across 8 time zones through waters wholly controlled by Russia, a leader in marine technology for extreme cold regions and cold waters. But Russia under ‘Putinism’ (is that a word yet?) is also, allegedly, a leader in digital espionage and so-called cyber warfare. Will a route almost wholly inside Russian waters and totally away from external surveillance or monitoring allow that system to gain political acceptance in the West and Japan or will heightened East West tensions impact its prospects for success?

SOUTH EAST ASIA

AMERICA. FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

In past times we could not have coped but this time we did and that was largely down to luck.

That’s not to minimise the efforts of the relevant people but without the capacity to work with little could be done.

And as it happened many new systems designed for 15 years growth had just become operational, unprecedented amounts of available capacity to soak up the sudden and extraordinary increase in demand. Thus far we have largely got through what must be one of the greatest technology substitutions in man’s evolution. It’s almost like all the horses died in 1886 and were replaced overnight by 21st century levels of motor vehicle production.

And so once again subsea cables make an appearance on the world stage as crucial not just to business but to mankind in general; politicians do tend to notice things like that.

IT WASN’T JUST COVID-19

Of course while it was the pandemic that once again thrust cable systems into the minds of governments concern over the power of big data, Russia’s alleged cyber-attacks and Pacific Ocean politics were already bubbling below the surface;• The US-China technology war escalated, Huawei were effectively forced out of the subsea cable business and under extreme pressure from President Trump removed not just from US national 5G networks but from those of many US allies around the world.

• Transpacific cables about to enter service that routed through the South China Sea before crossing the Pacific were denied US landing authority, forcing systems still being planned to try and find ways to bypass it.

The above issues lead to the virtual elimination of Hong Kong as a viable regional and global hub as it was now regarded by the USA as China in all but name. Hong Kong sat at the nexus of South and East Asian cable systems. Singapore is perhaps better characterised as an inter-region gateway than a regional hub and its geographic location at the narrowest part of the Malacca Strait highlights its potential vulnerability as a bottleneck. The waters around Singapore are controlled by Malaysia and Indonesia who are able to exert political influence over cable routings and issues like repair permits.

EAST TO WEST

Middle East Politics, Israel and the USA. The Polar route and Russia

The United States is almost unique in having huge coastlines on two oceans something that has shaped its foreign policy and military strategy for decades. This has been mirrored by the rollout strategy of the US tech giants as they expanded their interests into the subsea cable world. It is also something that alongside the fundamental internet technologies has allowed the United States to dominate the Internet both in terms of the hardware and software required to do just that.

That dominance has albeit in rather complex and indirect ways perhaps done more to bolster the concept of Make America Great (again) espoused by its former President who used the idea aggressively to further America’s trading power and influence around the world and certainly at home. No Twitter no Trump as one commentator reflected JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE after 2016. With President Trump’s departure it seems these foreign policies will remain fundamentally the same but projected in softer and more diplomatic forms and with no sign of any change in the strategy towards China which has directly influenced the subsea network in the Pacific and South China Sea. What may change though is the approach to the oversight and regulation of the tech giants that exert so much influence over life inside and outside the United States in a way far greater than even the seemingly omnipotent AT&T Bell system behemoth that controlled American domestic and international communications for decades before regulators decided that there had to be an end to its powers.

And that leads us to my final point about politics and cables.

BIG TECH OR TOO BIG

Arguably the Internet is the USA in digital form and there is no doubt whatsoever that it has transformed global society in many ways and its technological capabilities and physical capacity has allowed all of us to carry on our lives with a degree of normality in times never experienced in our lifetimes.

There is however a very big BUT coming along here, the size of these companies with their CEOs , major shareholders being worth the GDP of small countries is unlikely to be sustainable . In our own industry they have, not by design, almost removed any significant profit margin opportunity for manufacturers and limit access to the global network to potential future rivals. Not their objective but nonetheless largely what has happened. As a consequence of this unwitting and unintended domination regulators in the USA, never well-disposed to monopolistic practices, and more recently the EU have made it clear that these companies face some very, very challenging times in both political and regulatory terms.

These investigations and challenges cover very wide issues and this isn’t the place to speculate about them, well except for one area -subsea cables. Here they may face increased political pressure to lessen their dominance. A tried and tested means of enforcing that from the political and regulatory side is to separate services from facilities. So, to retain their positions in the core of their businesses could they face the prospect of having to divest themselves of some of their physical assets i.e. networks? It is only speculation, but if one such party, it doesn’t matter that much which one, has to choose between preserving revenues and its global subsea network then we all know what will happen; could it? will it? who knows? Legal changes have already been launched in USA at State and federal levels USA as a kind of anti trust situation. In Europe, well none

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of them are European, so politics and taxation will feature heavily, but in both cases divestiture looms.

LOOKING FORWARD FROM A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER

Superficially the subsea world looks healthy, it is finally recognised as an integral and critical part of global economic infrastructure. Manufacturers have full order books and new systems are still being developed. However, as my long term co-commentator Neil Tagare points out in his latest blog of the immense amounts spent on internet services in the last year very little ended up in the pockets of the subsea industry compared say to data centres and App developers.

In perhaps as little as seven years China will have the world’s largest economy overtaking the USA five years earlier than forecast because of the CV19 crisis. Is it realistic that the largest economy in the world has no truly global internet presence?

Indeed, on the day I am writing this the EU and China have signed an investment and trade pact that will substantially alter relationships between the two blocs. As stated by the EU spokesperson, Mr Dombrovskis, ‘This agreement is just one element, just one thread in a complex tapestry of the EU-China relationship, and of course it is clear that many complex challenges still need to be addressed.’ One element that is stated right up front in the agreement is telecom equipment, Europe’s subsea supplier ASN has been something of an unwanted orphan child in recent years, could politics allow a Chinese stake?

And finally, perhaps as way of summing up why our industry is becoming so politicised is just to quote the title of a UK publication about subsea cables actually written by a leading politician, British Member of Parliament, Rishi Sunak.

‘Submarine cables, indispensable, insecure’ STF Mr. Sunak is now finance minister of the UK thought by many to become its next Prime Minister. Policy Exchange is the UK’s leading think tank an educational charity whose mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas that will deliver better public services, a stronger society and a more dynamic economy. This interesting paper is available online and your favourite search engine will take you there, courtesy of the submarine cable network.

JOHN TIBBLES has spent a working lifetime in global telecoms much of it in the subsea cable arena where he held senior positions responsible for subsea investments and operations at Cable and Wireless and MCI WorldCom and as an internal advisor consultant to Reach and Telstra Reach. John spent many years working for C&W in Bermuda and established the first private subsea cable offshore company and has worked extensively with both consortia and private system models. He has a wide background and expertise in most commercial matters of international telecoms and since ‘retiring’ he has remained active in the industry as a consultant, commentator and at times a court appointed expert and has been a panellist and moderator at international events.

FEATURE PROJECT ‘KOETE’ CONTINUES TO GO ‘BEYOND’ A First Of Its Kind US$1.5 Bn Technology Ecosystem Being Developed

BY PETER BANNISTER AND GARY KENNEDY

I

n line with Forum Magazine’s theme of ‘Global Outlook’ let us tell you a little about Perth in Western Australia where we live and work and develop Project Koete (Koete being a Japanese word that means ‘To Go Beyond’).

Perth is the most geographically isolated capital city in the world and yet ‘right next door’ to the Asia and the Pacific region which is home to 4.1 billion people, or two thirds of the world’s population and Perth is geographically closer to Asia Pacific than Sydney or Melbourne.

Perth is known as the City of Lights – so called by the US astronaut Captain John Glenn who flew over Western Australia in 1962 in his spacecraft and again in 1998 in a space shuttle and all the residents of the city and surrounding suburbs turned on their lights to acknowledge his achievement.

Western Australia has an export-oriented economy, with almost half of Australia’s annual exports of goods originating from the state including minerals, petroleum, agri-food and specialised manufactured goods. The state also attracts many international visitors and students each year. These export industries support employment

across the Western Australian economy Perth is also the operational home base for Project Koete that reticulates along the coastline between the West and Northern territories of Australia and heads up through Asia Pac to Kuantan in Malaysia via Indonesia and Singapore. In those locations we work with partners to take us globally – both in the DC and Subsea cable space.

Project Koete’s subsea cable system also provides onshore connectivity via BU’s and CLS onto the coastline between Perth and Darwin where the big Minerals and Resources projects reside.

Project Koete also reticulates the offshore waters where the big Oil & Gas entities play and the FLNG market resides. Digitalisation of those Oilfields is expected to generate US$30Bn

Western Australia has an export-oriented economy, with almost half of Australia’s annual exports of goods originating from the state including minerals, petroleum, agri-food and specialised manufactured goods.

PROJECT KOETE – A PICTURE PAINTS A THOUSAND WORDS:

‘Koete’ is a Japanese word that literally means ‘to go beyond’ and that is exactly what the project aims to achieve as FEPL continues to develop a first of its kind US$1.5 Bn technology ecosystem based in the Western and Northern JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE territories of Australia that offer a secure and stable political climate and a skilled workforce. It is fast becoming an attractive location for global data solutions.

The ecosystem includes three Tier IV Modular data centres hubs in Perth, Darwin and Dampier connected via a paired 8,000-kilometre, carrier neutral, high speed, low latency subsea cable includes seven cable landing stations between Perth and Darwin.

The ecosystem will transform the Western and Northern territories into global digital hubs and bring new business verticals and revenue opportunities and jobs to the region. Project Koete will provide vital offshore and onshore data and internet connectivity domestically between Perth and Darwin, while directly connecting the cities to international business hubs in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and to business hubs in Asia Pacific and ‘beyond’ to global markets.

It will be a major drawcard for attracting multinational businesses to the region and will boost digital investment, particularly from the natural resources, finance, and cloud computing industries.

The Western and Northern capital cities of Australia are the country’s gateway to Asia Pacific and ‘beyond’ and are the geographical locations of Project Koete. The project concept and design not only address the qualified domestic needs of Australia but further provides a safe back up hub for global multinational corporations (MNCs) with mission critical data centric operations in Asia Pacific and ‘beyond’ in Europe and USA. FEPL continues to leverage its outsourcing business model and past project experience and works through existing strategic alliances with global industry experts to ensure the successful completion of

Project Koete. Technology, Media and Telecommunications project development partners headquartered in India, US and Australia bring their Global and Asia Pacific project design and implementation resources to ‘Connect Communicate and Collaborate’ in delivering Project Koete.

The ecosystem modular data centres will be built to the Tier IV Uptime Institute standard and the highest levels of security and efficiency. The initial capacity of each data centre will be 20MW – the equivalent of power for 13,000 homes – with ample room to grow through the Modular design.

The ecosystem design includes non passive cable landing system (CLS) designed to include industry development requirements for multiple backhaul routes, provision by several different carriers, IP access, peering for cloud providers and high-capacity internet. the CLS infrastructure will be the primary connection points for the Data Centres between Perth and Darwin to the subsea cable.

Project Koete will combine the benefits of greater interconnectivity between NT and WA and the world, encouraging greater investment in the region, and improving data security and sovereignty.

The technology hubs will also house the key enabling infrastructure to support the validated requirements of key multinational customer business verticals and will also facilitate eHealth and eLearning and, by onshoring the subsea cable via branching units, support NBN and Mobile operators to provide contestable bandwidth north of Perth and deployment of new high speed data network and transmission capacity coupled with 4G/5G networks for floating and fixed oil & gas assets and fixed mining assets.

Project Koete will also facilitate growth for WA’s existing Floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG), Oil & Gas and

Project Koete will provide vital offshore and onshore data and internet connectivity domestically between Perth and Darwin, while directly connecting the cities to international business hubs in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and to business hubs in Asia Pacific and ‘beyond’ to global markets.

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Project Koete will facilitate onshore connectivity for remote indigenous communities and mining industries and provide mobile operators a solution to challenge the monopolistic services that exist North of Perth.

Mining industries and support plans for economic growth in jobs, tourism, science, and industry. WA’s offshore Oil & Gas assets are seeking global connectivity to facilitate remote M2M operations from USA, Europe, and Asia.

In addition, Project Koete aims to provide a SMART/ OBOS enabled subsea cable that can support qualified needs for early detection and warning of Seismic/Earthquake/Tsunami activity and can monitor the ocean environment to provide real time scientific data regarding weather and sea animal migrations assisting with long term studies and development.

Project Koete will facilitate onshore connectivity for remote indigenous communities and mining industries and provide mobile operators a solution to challenge the monopolistic services that exist North of Perth. The project is expected to bring hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars to the region, while offering unparalleled offshore connectivity to the oil and gas fields off north-western Australia.

Project Koete is attracting attention from global investors and lenders with the project being primarily funded by approximately US$600 million in senior debt and US$900 million in equity, both of which are in progress and open for new investors.

This will be the most significant technological investment Western Australia and the Northern Territory have ever seen. As the global economy increasingly digitises, this investment signals to Australia, Asia Pacific and the rest of the world that this region is ‘open for business’ and ready to become a digital hub. The ecosystem will support the region’s most significant developments, including the enhanced digitisation of oil fields supporting next-generation digital infrastructure including IoT, artificial intelligence, and even support detection and prediction of tsunamis.

Historic pre Covid-19’ reports issued by industry analysts had forecast strong growth in the Asia Pacific region

in terms of data centre and hosting services revenues, and estimated to reach around US$32 billion by 2023, behind only to America. China is forecast to be the largest Asia Pacific market accounting for 36% followed by Japan and Australia. Western and Northern Australia are a safe back up hub for global MNCs with data centres in Asia Pacific and Europe/USA. These forecasts are now seen as being now dramatically out of date due to ever increasing demand for Data Centres and Subsea Cable capacity and resilience brought on by the totally unforeseen Covid-19 world that now affects the way we do business globally.

As well as being a key driver for construction, engineering and other jobs as well as huge investment in the region, Project Koete will provide benefits to Indigenous communities by way of jobs and eHealth and eLearning. It will provide capacity for multinational cloud giants and global financial services companies to diversify beyond traditional data centre hubs such as Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore.

It will also provide valuable infrastructure on which Telco’s can build new services.

Estimated to be ready for service in 2024. STF PETER BANNISTER is the Founder of FEPL currently based in Perth, WA. Over 35 years’ experience in design, build, operation of global telecoms. Experienced in start-up, development and ongoing operations of global telecoms entities and well versed in managing the challenges of large geographically dispersed projects involving multi-national/ cultural internal teams and external vendors with contracts budgets worth more than US$5Bn. Previous experience with BP UK and Asia Pacific whose projects portfolio included subsea cable installations in the UK North Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Strong Asia Pacific and global experience.

GARY KENNEDY will onboard as the new CEO of FEPL in January 2021. Gary Kennedy has over 30 years’ experience in Finance and Commerce. Born and bred in Western Australia, he brings a unique understanding of domestic and international capital markets and logistics of commercial ventures.

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FEATURE

LATENCY IS THE NEW CURRENCY

BY DAG AANENSEN

W

hen I started my career in Telecoms 25 years ago, data had to travel twice over the Atlantic to be processed, even if the local providers where only a few houses apart. Quality was poor due to packet loss and the cost per Mbit was extremely high.

Then the internet arrived and by end of 1997 internet had more than 100 million users. As the internet grew rapidly in the EU there was a need to connect EU with the US providing more capacity.

Tat-12/13 consortium priced an STM-1´s IRU at $25 Million. The last STM-1 IRU circuit sold on the Gemini cable was priced at $18 million. Then Global Crossing appeared on the market announcing the AC-1 in March 1997, a Transatlantic submarine cable system consisting of 4 fiber pairs with 258 repeaters.

The original design was 10Gbps per fiber pair. In May 1998 AC-1 started to carry voice and data traffic opening up a new market. The first SMT-1 IRU sold on AC-1 was priced at $8

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million. (The current median price for a Transatlantic 10G IRU wavelength is close to $100.000.) The maintenance contracts were priced at share of maintenance plus 10% or minimum $250.000 per STM-1. Backhaul from Whitesands to London were priced at approx. $500.000.- per STM-1.

Approaching the 2000´s Internet traffic continued to grow, and national internet exchange points and peering traffic grew exponentially. After the installation of AC1, AC-2, Tat-14 and FLAG there followed a glut in the submarine cable industry. In early 2010 old consortium cables began being replaced by new private submarine cable systems, anchored by the OTT´s. The FX trading firms, and the financial markets requested more time sensitive capacity and latency became an important factor when selecting a capacity provider.

In the last decade, the OTT´s have brought a new era of growth to the submarine cable industry. The traditional 4 or 6 fiber pair fiber cable systems

are now being replaced by 12 or even up to 24 fiber pairs systems, capable of producing up to 26 Tbps per fiber pair.

Bringing the prices for capacity down to a typical industry level of cost plus 10% margin.

The internet growth rate is now increasing rapidly on all continents, and as new submarine cable systems are being installed, they play an important role in delivering fast and reliable access to cloud services, apps, and local content.

Digital dependency is here to stay, and with the growth of time sensitive applications submarine cable infrastructure matters more than ever. However, the speed of light is defined by the laws of physics. Any shorter route provided by a new submarine cable system will become a more attractive routing path and have the potential to take more data traffic.

LATENCY IS THE NEW CURRENCY.

The OTT´s have invested largely in their own submarine cables to get access to the cheapest dedicated capacity between their own data centers in different countries. The more direct routes the submarine cable industry can deliver the better cloud services like Azure and AWS. The digital industry is now on a constant search for lower latency.

Will 20ms latency be sufficient to provide users fast and reliable access to their cloud services and content moving further into this decade? With several new submarine cables in place the Nordics is well positioned to serve EU markets with latency requirements anywhere from 3-20 ms. In addition, the Nordics have an abundance of no-carbon electricity at low cost. Making the Nordics a very attractive place to move or build new datacenters.

What impact will 5G and 6G have on the submarine cable industry?

Time sensitive computing will be the new era with digital solutions everywhere. Strategically placed edge sites will serve the edge computing. 6G will require latency at 1ms,

5G will require computing for example e-manufacturing at 1-5ms, while today 20ms is sufficient to deliver high quality services for virtual desktop, video conferencing, live streaming, online gaming and e-learning/e-health.

Latency is truly revenue related to deliver good quality cloud services and require response times in low millisecond ranges. The future infrastructure including submarine cables are all part of delivering real time processing at a high quality to the end users.

It will be interesting to see how much latency and organization can accept in 5-years from now. Will latency be pivotal to a business success? And what will decide the effectiveness of business intelligence?

Edge computing will have to be processed anywhere from 50-80 km away from the end users, a much short distance compared to the 14500km data had to travel 25 years ago!

Scalable on demand connectivity, guaranteed network availability, secure routes, fiber diversity and redundancy are expected qualities from a submarine cable system.

These qualities must not be jeopardized against the requirement of lower latency.

To shorten the fiber distance between larger datacenters and to support micro edge computing more and more regional non-repeated submarine cables will have to be installed. We have only seen the beginning…

To stay ahead of the competitor’s latency is the new currency for the next generation of applications and services. But you can only use it to your advantage if you have it! STF DAG AANENSEN has more than 25 years of senior technical, operational and executive experience in the global telecommunications industry. He was responsible for buying/selling many of Europe’s active fiber optical telecommunications systems for both undersea and terrestrial applications. The most recent project is Havtor – a new submarine fiber optical cable providing the shortest and most secure crossing of the North Sea from Norway to Denmark.

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FEATURE

WHAT ARE

THE ODDS?

An Analysis of the Likelihood a New System Will be Accomplished

BY KRISTIAN NIELSEN

I

n this tremendous industry, there is no shortage of developers with a dream. Every planned system comes from someone with a twinkle of innovation in their eye, they can see an opportunity someone else has not – they come from every corner of the world, some experienced and some branching into a new industry.

There is no single determining factor that grants a new system a guaranteed installation, fortune and circumstance can help, but today there have been systems that are ready for service and were stalled for political reasons. There are no guarantees.

So, what makes a system possible? What takes an idea and spins it into fiber? The factors are too many to enumerate, there are, however, quantifiable factors that we can compare. With the correct data, any analysis is possible.

Using a comprehensive data set coupled with refined statistical analysis, it is possible to develop a predictive model to determine the probability over time of a given system developer’s chance of success.

To develop such a predictive model, several key factors must be identified to determine historical trends. After

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these trends have been identified, it is then possible to predict the relative success of system development.

The primary factors to identify in the predictive model include the following: • Initial Public Announcement of the System • Initial Announcement to CIF • CIF to Start of Marine Survey • Start of Marine Survey to Start of Manufacturing • Start of Manufacturing to End of Commissioning (Ready for Service) Trends can then be determined on either a quarterly or month-to-month basis – e.g., “Every additional quarter between announcement and CIF decreases success chance

by X percent”. Where possible, regional adjustments can be applied, and other potential indicators identified in the predictive model with a similar trending process being utilized.

It is generally accepted that once a system reaches Contract in Force, it posses the necessary funding to, or near to, fully accomplish the design, survey, manufacturing, installation and commissioning of a system. As such, the moment that any developing system hinges on is the moment that funding

is realized. This may seem obvious to an industry insider, but statistically it will be important.

Working with the SubTel Forum Submarine Cable Database, we reviewed some 70 systems that were rumored and then officially announced over a five-year period. Of those systems, only 36 actually succeeded.

That is an especially important figure – again, of the systems that were rumored, and then announced, only half make it to full commissioning.

What else can we learn from the dataset? The average time from rumor to Ready For service is roughly 1,400 days, or 4 years. There are exceptions to the rule, when a mega-scaler announces a new system it is typically when it is nearly ready for installation or even commissioning, for instance. While the announcement period bucks the industry norm, the actual physical survey and constructions times still follow the trends.

With that in mind, it would appear that as an exception to the norm, the only difference mega-scalers, or OTT providers, seem to present is the need to publicize their systems. Further, with little need for publicity one could assume that CIF is an easier milestone to achieve and needs little to no public support or funding.

What else? To maximize public support and to seem “real” to the industry, a system must meet CIF within roughly 400 days from its initial announcement. The window of opportunity for any new system will close quickly without being seen as viable from the suppliers, as such, moving as quickly as feasible on funding is paramount for a new system to be successful.

Once a system reaches CIF, based on the dataset reviewed, that system will eventually be successful and reach commissioning.

So, based on the average timeline of a system, what would an announcement today mean for your new system?

Say you announce your system in this very issue of SubTel Forum, you have until the end of first quarter 2022 to make CIF, no exceptions. The longer the CIF announcement takes, the less likely suppliers will take your new system seriously. Without the support of at least one of the major suppliers, there’s little chance that your system will be realized.

The data is inconclusive on which particular variables contributes the most to a system being defeated, while the one consistent factor is reaching CIF within 400 days from announcement.

Following CIF, there are hard figures that, by norm, will not change. A survey has a fixed required time, cable can be manufactured only so quickly, and installation can be

rushed only so much.

On average, it will take 159 days from CIF to reach the Marine Survey.

Following the start of the marine survey, it will take 382 days to reach manufacturing.

Following the survey, it will take on average 559 to accomplish the manufacturing, installation, and commissioning of the system.

With these hard figures in mind, you can plan your system funding and rollout accordingly. Take every step possible to work with suppliers in parallel as much as possible. An aggressive schedule for your pre-sales, engineering and design and final award of the supply contract can be accomplished in parallel to reach that landmark CIF announcement as fast as possible.

After you secure CIF, the world is yours. STF KRISTIAN NIELSEN is the Quality & Fulfilment Director at WFN Strategies. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP™) and ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013 auditor and possesses more than 13 years’ experience and knowledge in submarine cable systems, including Polar and offshore Oil & Gas submarine fiber systems. As Quality & Fulfilment Director, he reviews subcontracts and monitors the clients and vendors, and is the final check on all delivered WFN products. He is responsible for contract administration, as well as supports financial monitoring and in-field logistics. He has worked in-field, at-desk and everywhere in between.

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FEATURE

THE OPEN ROAD TO SUBMARINE CAPACITY

Managing Optical Power Levels in Open Submarine Cables

BY GEOFF BENNETT

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T

he submarine network market is experiencing unprecedented demand growth, and it has even seen a boost from the changes in our working patterns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. A major trend over the past five years has been the move to open cable systems, where the wet plant and the transponders are sourced from different vendors, whether on different fiber pairs or even within the same fiber pair. Decoupling the choice of wet plant and transponders allows the cable operator to choose the best-of-breed transponders at any given point in the cable’s lifecycle. But open cables also have challenges around fiber characterization, capacity deployment, and optical power management.

This article explains why open submarine cables are so vital to today’s market and how intelligent optical power management can help to solve their major challenges.

OPEN SUBMARINE CABLES

ers that are spaced at regular intervals along the cable. The dry plant includes the high-voltage electrical equipment that powers the amplifier chain, the terminal (or ROADM) unit, and the transponders. The latter two, the terminal and transponders, are also known as the submarine line terminating equipment, or SLTE. Given the fact that the wet plant portion of the cable, including the electrical power management, cannot be changed once it has been deployed, this article will focus on the SLTE portion of the system, and in particular the need for optical power management.

Figure 1 shows a breakdown of the elements within the SLTE, shown within the dotted line box.

The cable itself connects into a flexible grid ROADM, and this provides an open demarcation point for the insertion of wavelengths from a variety of different vendors’ transponders. One of the key capabilities that has been highlighted by the move to open cables is the need to control and maintain the stability of optical power levels along the entire cable system. This is achieved using optical power sources such as amplifier

Submarine cable systems are basically composed of two major elements: the wet plant and the dry plant. As its name suggests, the wet plant includes anything that goes under the water, including the cable itself and the optical amplifiers that are spaced at regular intervals along the cable.

Submarine cable systems are basically composed of two major elements: the wet plant and the dry plant. As its name suggests, the wet plant includes anything that goes under the water, including the cable itself and the optical amplifi-

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FEATURE

spontaneous emission (ASE) generators and idlers. Both these devices generate optical power over a certain range of frequencies, and their power level and frequency range are controlled by intelligent power management software working in conjunction with the flexible grid ROADM. ASE and idlers do not transmit data – they simply generate light.

SUBMARINE AMPLIFIER CONSTANT POWER OPERATION

Why would we need to generate light that is not carrying useful data? To understand this requirement, we need to understand that most submarine cables operate their amplifiers in a constant power mode, as opposed to constant gain. Figure 2 shows one of the implications.

In Figure 2A we see eight wavelengths entering an amplifier at relatively low optical power levels and then being amplified before exiting at higher power levels. Note on the right of Figure 2A I have indicated a red dotted line showing the nonlinear power threshold. If the power level of any of the wavelengths exceeds this value, it will trigger unwanted nonlinear effects such as self-phase modulation, cross-phase modulation, or four-wave mixing. If any of these effects occur, they will lower the Q, or quality level, of the signal and may introduce errors that cannot be recovered by the forward error correction function at the receiver.

Submarine amplifiers need to be phenomenally reliable, and to help with that they do not contain the control circuitry to automatically balance the optical power levels.

Instead, they operate in a constant power mode – the same amount of optical power is created regardless of the number of data wavelengths passing through the amplifier. So, the gain allocated to each wavelength is effectively a share of that total optical power.

Figure 2B shows what happens if some of the wavelengths entering the amplifier are turned off for some reason. In this case, three wavelengths are lost and the amplifier power that would have been applied to these wavelengths is transferred to the remaining five waves. The result is that they are overamplified and exceed the nonlinear threshold.

The solution to this problem is for the intelligent power management (IPM) function, shown in orange, to recognize the loss of wavelengths and to “replace them” with optical power generated by the ASE. Note that the ASE will generate a wide band of optical power, so the IPM works with the flexible grid ROADM to filter the ASE signal to the appropriate band of frequencies. On the right-hand side of Figure 2B, we see the ASE signal is amplified, and, as I have indicated with the blue arrow, that the data wavelength power levels are brought below the nonlinear threshold.

Submarine amplifiers need to be phenomenally reliable, and to help with that they do not contain the control circuitry to automatically balance the optical power levels.

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CAUSES OF AMPLIFIER INSTABILITY

There are several scenarios in which it is possible to lose a number of waves at one time. I have shown one example in Figure 3. A key trend in submarine cables today is the idea of “glassing through” at the cable landing station (CLS) instead of digitally terminating the optical signal in an OTN switch at the CLS. There is now a terrestrial backhaul section in the all-optical path and, if this is lost due to a terrestrial cable break, some or all the wavelengths on the submarine section will also be affected. Intelligent power management can help preserve service stability in situations like this.

SPECTRUM SHARING

As I mentioned already, submarine cable services can be terminated using OTN switches, and one of the functions these perform is that of bandwidth management – slicing up the capacity on the fiber pair into more economically attractive chunks for resale. But the trend in modern cable deployments is to connect transponders or muxponders directly into the open line system, so fiber capacity must be managed in other ways. The AAE-1 cable, for example, is made up of five fiber pairs, and its total cable length is around 25,000 km, making it the world’s longest submarine cable system to be constructed in almost 15 years. One obvious bandwidth management option is for different fiber pairs to be sold or leased to given network operators. But the AAE-1 website lists 19 network operators participating in the cable consortium, so how do so many operators gain access to the capacity they need in an economically attractive way? A particular challenge for such a huge cable system is that AAE-1 terminates at two points of presence in Singapore and is the only next-generation submarine cable that continues further into Asia through diverse terrestrial routes across Thailand and provides connectivity to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Hong Kong. While this diversity allows AAE-1 to offer one of the lowest-latency routes

between Hong Kong, India, the Middle East, and Europe, it is essential to maintain amplifier stability across each contiguous all-optical section of the cable.

A recent approach is to allow fiber pair spectrum to be partitioned and sold to different network operators, known as spectrum sharing. While this can provide an extremely cost-effective way to slice and dice fiber pair capacity, it also suffers from challenges around power management – especially with respect to terrestrial backhaul topologies.

In addition to the usual job of providing stable operating conditions for the submerged amplifier chain, the intelligent power management functions for a spectrum sharing solution must also monitor and police the spectrum allocated to different tenants sharing the spectrum of the complete fiber pair and take action in case of any violation of launch conditions.

SUMMARY

The constant power characteristics of submarine amplifiers have meant that, in the past, tools such as ASE generators and idlers needed to be manually controlled to maintain cable stability. Today, a modern, open submarine cable system can bring together these intelligent power management capabilities, automate them, and allow next-generation submarine transponders to operate at the highest levels of stability, efficiency, and performance. STF GEOFF BENNETT is the Director of Solutions & Technology for Infinera, a leading manufacturer of Intelligent Transport Network solutions. He has over 25 years of experience in the data communications industry, including IP routing with Proteon and Wellfleet; ATM and MPLS experience with FORE Systems; and optical transmission and switching experience with Marconi, where he held the position of Distinguished Engineer in the CTO Office. Geoff is a frequent conference speaker, and is the author of “Designing TCP/IP Internetworks,” published by VNR.

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FEATURE

PREPARING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ADDITIONAL SUBSEA CABLES IN VIRGINIA BEACH

BY GREG TWITT

V

irginia Beach is located on the Eastern Seaboard of United States, and is ideally situated in the Mid Atlantic for accommodating Subsea Cables, and is the host of three of the fastest subsea cables located in the Telxius Cable landing Station: • Marea, owners: Microsoft, Facebook and Telxius, Virginia Beach to Sopelana Spain, 8 fiber pairs at up to 200tbs • Brusa, owners: Telxius, linking Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza (Brazil) with San Juan (Puerto Rico) and Virginia Beach, has 8 fiber pairs running at 160Tbs. • Google’s Dunant cable from France’s Bordeaux region to Virginia Beach, with an expected RFS this year, is the fastest cable yet, with 12 fiber pairs at 250 tbs, and is over 50% faster than its roommate, Marea.

Why is there so much talk about Virginia Beach being

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“the ideal Hub” for Transatlantic, Latin American and Eastern Seaboard traffic? Answer: Geographic location.

Located within seven miles from the existing and proposed beach manholes, Virginia Beach’s designated Data Center Park, Corporate Landing Park is home of Telxius’s Cable Landing Station and the Globalinx Carrier Neutral Data Center complex, which has been in operation for the

past twelve months. Globalinx is 700 meters from Telxius with zero latency, redundant 864 count fiber connections into the CLS. Corporate Landing Park has elevations of 18 feet above sea level, and is outside a 500 year flood, giving a great deal more solace than all locations further south, that have a history of being much more impacted by the East Coast’s hurricane season.

Virginia Beach is ideally situated to provide robust international and local low latency bandwidth services. It is an ideal location for Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon, to feed Data Center and Cloud facilities located within a reasonable proximity, both north and south of Virginia Beach. It is also close to Charlotte North Carolina, which is the home of three of United States largest banks: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and BB&T. Ashburn, the internet hub of the world, is located 200 miles north, and was perhaps, at this moment is the main driver for traffic from Virginia Beach.

navigable waters, amongst tight existing coastline infrastructure. Although from a high level, coastlines in general look deceptively wide open and inviting for subsea cables, they are more than likely not for many reasons, and Virginia Beach is certainly no exception to this. For example, tourism and Defense Department coexistence make it extremely difficult to find suitable sites.

FUTURE GROWTH

Within the next twelve months Virginia Beach will have completed infrastructure, allowing for a total of 12 subsea cables.

Globalinx has engineered and permitted with the Virginia Marine Resource Commission a further 8 diverse subsea and terrestrial conduits in Virginia Beach for current and future requirements. With a ready for service date of Q3 to Q4, 2021, routes are independent of the existing Telxius Camp Pendleton route containing four conduits to their Corporate Landing CLS. The additional 8 Globalinx cables secures the opportunity for sustained growth for the region.

Globalinx grappled with the Virginia Beach complex coastline in order to locate and permit the optimum placement for the two diverse locations containing four conduits each, destined for their campus in the Corporate Landing Data Center Park.

Landing Site Considerations include: • Diversity from the existing Telxius conduits located at Camp Pendleton.

• As much diversity from the two new permitted routes (Rudee Inlet and Sandbridge), nearly four miles apart.

• The shortest distance from the beach manhole to the CLS. • Difficulty in finding workable drilling rig locations and

• Timing, consideration needed to be given to the large amount of future offshore infrastructure in the near future, and therefore the timing for permitting and construction was critical.

MASSIVE CLEAN RENEWABLE WIND ENERGY FOR VIRGINIA BEACH DOMINION POWER/ORSTED AND AVANGRID RENEWABLES/KITTY HAWK PROJECTS Dominion Power will be 27 miles off the coast of VirJANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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FEATURE ginia Beach, 118,000 acres commercial Federal offshore lease with plans for 2.6 gigawatts (2600MW ) of renewable wind power, enough to power 650, 000 homes off peak with an RFS of 2024. A substation is proposed to locate within a mile of Globalinx Campus and Corporate landing Data Center Park with power pipelines coming through Camp Pendleton.

Avangrid will be 27 miles off the coast of Kittyhawk, North Carolina, on 122,000 acres of commercial Federal offshore leased ocean. It will produce 2.5 gigawatts enough to power 700,000 homes by 2026.

Avingrid’s Substation is proposed to be located in Corporate Landing Park, within 800 meters from the Globalinx Campus.

Power pipelines for both these operation will come into Virginia Beach with separate substations.

In summary, Virginia Beach will be landing over 5,000 mgw of renewable energy, into two separate substations, with an RFS of 2024 to 2026.

Globalinx recognizes the value this brings to Corporate Landing’s Data Center Park, low latency renewable wind energy, with great redundancy for clean renewable energy available for huge Data Center future growth, further enabling Virginia Beach to grow as one of the most important global subsea cable hubs.

Google & Facebook has a 100% commitment to carbon free energy by 2030, and Amazon a net zero carbon free by 2040.

“In a three-year period, Virginia Beach has come from zero subsea cables with no Data Center or Cable landing Station infrastructure, to three of the fastest cables in the world, a cable landing station, a carrier neutral tier four data center, and another 8 permitted subsea conduits, which will be ready for service late next year! This is not without a lot of capital investment from private enterprise and a lot of hard work and the full support from all of us at the City of Virginia Beach. We are very excited about

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the prospects and future this industry brings to the region, and we will continue to give the industry our full support,” the Virginia Beach two term Mayor Bobby Dyer said. STF GREG TWITT is the Founder and President of Globalinx, a provider of Cable Landing Station (CLS) and Subsea Carrier-Neutral Colocation Data Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia USA. and is the visionary behind developing the first and only Subsea Carrier-Neutral Data Center in Virginia Beach, supporting Subsea Cables (MAREA & BRUSA). Greg has since worked on various subsea and data center projects on the East Coast and Spain and is working closely with the City of Virginia Beach in creating and providing subsea and terrestrial conduit infrastructure for Virginia.

Over the past 25 years he has led successful development of residential apartment and office buildings in New York City and in Virginia, commercial real estate specializing in medium to large footprint warehousing and class A office buildings. In 1991, he became President of the Otto Gerdau Company, 80 Wall St, NY. overseeing the management of trading exchange companies, and New York real estate investments, including 80 and 82 Wall Street, and 120/122 Water St. for over ten years An Australian, Greg holds a bachelor’s degree in business/economics from Melbourne University Australia, and has lived in the USA for 30 years.

9001:2015 andmanagement ISO 27001:2013 designer and ISOISO 9001:2015 accredited systemcertified and ISO 27001:2013 InfoSec program for the implementation of submarine fiber cable systems for commercial, implementer of submarine fiber cable systems for commercial, governmental andgovernmental oil & gas companies/President’ Award for Exports recipient and oil & gass “E” companies.

FEATURE SUBMARINE CABLE HUBS AROUND THE WORLD

BY PATRICK FAIDHERBE, LAURENT CAMPAGNE, GEORGES KREBS AND JEAN DEVOS WHAT IS A SUBMARINE CABLE HUB?

A

submarine cable hub is essentially a point where submarine cables interconnect with each other. It is a location where submarine cables very often terminate or, at least, extend a branch.

New York is a typical example of a submarine cable hub where all submarine cables landing there terminate and interconnect with other submarine cables and longhaul trans-USA terrestrial cables. South England and London is a mirror example on the other side of the Atlantic.

Sydney is another example: all submarine cable systems landing in Sydney terminate in Sydney and interconnect with other submarine cable systems or long-haul trans-Australia terrestrial cables.

Marseilles in the Mediterranean is another such case and there are many others.

CONFIGURATION OF THE WORLDWIDE SUBMARINE CABLE NETWORK.

To better understand what a submarine cable hub is, its relative strength and its location, one needs to consider the shape of the international submarine cable network.

The backbone of the worldwide submarine cable network is a “fibre loop around the globe”, for which one can adopt the acronym “FLAG”, which was very appropriately used to name an old visionary cable system.

It is to be noted that the FLAG includes the five following segments: • Trans-Atlantic (essentially London - New York), • Trans-USA (essentially New York - Los Angeles and

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New York - Portland); this segment is by nature a terrestrial segment and the only terrestrial segment in the loop, • Trans-Pacific (essentially Los Angeles/Portland - Japan), • East-Asia backbone (essentially Japan - Singapore), • South East Asia - Middle East - Europe backbone (SEA-ME-WE as another old visionary system was called, followed by several others), essentially Singapore to Marseilles.

The FLAG can be depicted in diagram 1.

In addition to the FLAG and its 5 segments, there are 3 major southern submarine cable loops: • The Africa loop, • The South America loop, • The Oceania loop.

One can also add two secondary submarine cable loops covering the Caribbean and the Arab - Persian Gulf.

Diagrams 2 and 3 summarize the configuration of these loops and how they interconnect with the major cable loop around the globe (FLAG).

Major types of submarine cable hubs and their location within the network.

The analysis of the simplified worldwide submarine cable network configuration assists greatly in understanding the location and respective strengths of submarine cable hubs.

One can identify about 30 major or important hubs around the world. However, they are not all the same size and importance. They also differ by their type of geographical position and function in the network.

One can distinguish the following types of hubs (shown in the legend of diagram 1, which is also applicable to diagrams 2 and 3): • Primary network nodes, • Network junctions, • Secondary network nodes, • Intermediate islands, and • National gateways.

Primary network nodes include New York, London, Singapore, Japan, Los Angeles, and Portland. They are all positioned at the extremity of a segment of the FLAG. They are in the vicinity of major cities with a strong international influence. In addition to interconnecting 2 segments of the FLAG, they also act as a distribution platform for their region. This is particularly the case for London, Los Angeles, and Singapore. At the same time, they are also major national gateways for their own country.

Network junctions provide an interconnection between the FLAG and the southern submarine cable loops.

For example, Los Angeles and Miami are network junctions for the South America loop. Miami is also a network junction for the Caribbean network. Lisbon and Djibouti act as network junctions for the Africa loop.

In the same way, Oman and the UAE compete to provide the network junction for the Gulf countries.

Secondary network nodes are intermediate concentration points located on the FLAG or nodes located at the extremity of a southern loop.

Intermediate concentration points on the FLAG include Egypt, Marseilles and Taiwan.

Extremity nodes are hubs located at the far-end of southern loops: South Africa and Cape Town for the Africa loop, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile for the South America loop and Sydney - Perth for the Oceania loop.

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FEATURE Intermediate islands provide a network function essentially because of their geographical position and to some degree because of their relative importance and development compared to their immediate surroundings.

Certain intermediate islands act as network junctions.

This is the case for Hawaii and Guam in the Pacific.

Other intermediate islands provide a local concentration point for the connection of other islands or countries: Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands compete as a major Caribbean hub and Fiji provides a major connection point for islands in the South Pacific, thanks to its location and its comparatively sizeable population. Taiwan can develop as a local hub thanks to his critical position on the East Asia segment.

Finally, national gateways can act as international submarine cable hubs. However, this is generally a secondary function and their key function is to connect their country to the FLAG or to the relevant southern loop. In Asia, Hong Kong and Shanghai are national gateways for China and Mumbai and Chennai provide the same function for India. Because of their position and relative size, Mumbai and Hong Kong are stronger submarine cable hubs than the two other cities, each located somewhat further from the FLAG. In the same way, Santos/Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are Brazilian national gateways but, due to its size and location, Santos/Sao Paulo is often a hub for Argentina.

CRITICAL PASSAGES.

Geography is a major factor strongly influencing the configuration of the submarine cable network and the location and relative strength of submarine cable hubs. Singapore, at the junction of the East Asia and SEA-ME-WE segments, is an archetypal example. The Singapore strait is a very difficult to avoid passage point. In addition, because numerous cables have landed in Singapore over the years, it is more and more attractive to land there and to benefit from excellent interconnection possibilities.

At the same time, Singapore can be considered as a major weakness point in the international submarine cable network.

Other well-known critical passages on the FLAG include Egypt and Marseilles and, to some degree Taiwan.

The Egyptian isthmus is probably the archetypal example of critical passage. Marseilles can be considered as the alternative to the Gibraltar strait. Taiwan is also a critical passage because of the Luzon strait to the south and the very shallow waters of the China Sea to the north.

Outside of the FLAG, the Panama isthmus and the very narrow Sunda strait are also critical passages generating local hubs, in the case of Panama because of the geography and in the case of Jakarta because of a political will and the

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growth of a major national gateway.

Oman and UAE compete as hubs for Gulf countries, based on the control of the Ormuz strait by Oman and the possibility of providing a by-pass through the UAE. Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands also provide access to a relatively safe strait to access the south of the Caribbean.

All these submarine cable hubs have essentially a geographical root which can be further enhanced by political will, political stability, and local economic and population growth.

BY-PASSES AND DIVERSIFICATIONS. BY-PASSES:

As the submarine cable network is growing, it is more and more desired to make it more secure and redundant by by-passing critically positioned hubs. A related consideration is that it is generally more and more difficult to land new systems at those hubs because of growing cable congestion.

Singapore is sometime by-passed by crossing the Thai isthmus between Songkhla and Satun. Marseilles can be avoided by crossing the Gibraltar strait. Egypt may be bypassed to the east, as the Blue Raman system is planning to do, also avoiding Marseilles by landing in Genoa.

Guam has traditionally provided a by-pass alternative to Japan.

Intermediate islands are also more and more avoided, altogether by-passed or connected by a branch rather than by a full landing. The recent advances in transmission technology facilitate such by-passes as is exemplified by the SEA-US and Southern Cross Next cable systems by-passing Hawaii.

However, increased powering requirement for high fibre count cables may rejuvenate the technical role of intermediate islands.

HUB LANDING DIVERSIFICATIONS:

The limited number of major submarine cable hubs create major risks of significant network disturbances, especially when their location is critical. The more a hub grows and attract new cables, the higher the concentration and the associated interruption risks.

One way to minimise risks is to maintain cable landing separations in any given hub. This is the case in the four major US hubs with strong landing diversifications (separation between New Jersey and Long Island for New York, South Florida multiple landings and South California and Oregon multiple landings). It is also the case of South England and of Japan with the separation between the Tokyo area and Shima.

Such local diversity is harder to achieve in Marseilles and Egypt and much harder in Singapore.

NETWORK DIVERSIFICATIONS:

Network diversifications can be implemented by landing new cables outside of existing major hubs: for example, the recent transatlantic system “Dunant” lands in Virginia and on the French Atlantic coast. Another transatlantic system, “Marea”, lands in Virginia and in Bilbao (Spain).

The Blue-Raman system will avoid Egypt and the heavy concentration of submarine cables in the Red Sea. Some new transpacific cables directly connect the USA to Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

In addition to diversification in the FLAG, there is also diversification in the southern loops. For example, the new Perth - Oman cable avoids the Sunda and Singapore straits.

It is one example of “diagonal cables” which diversify the connectivity from the southern countries to the FLAG. Other examples include the SAFE cable system connecting South Africa to India and Malaysia. In the Atlantic, Fortaleza acts as a double network junction with cables to Europe (Atlantis and Ellalink) and cables to Africa (SACS to Angola). The recently announced Chile - New Zealand/ Australia system would be another such example.

Finally, well designed and taking advantage of arctic warming, polar cables would provide the ultimate global network diversification.

COMMERCIAL CABLES AND OTT CABLES

The backbone of the international submarine cable network is a fibre loop around the globe supplemented by five southern loops. This has proven to be an appropriate solution to provide cost effective connectivity to a vast number of countries. This has also led to the development of a limited number of major hubs where submarine cable landings concentrate. The more these major hubs developed, the more cable landings they attracted. This has now reached a limit and there is perhaps a need to diversify the network with cables installed outside of the traditional routes.

This is neither easy, nor obvious. It is very difficult for a private cable to adopt unconventional routes which are generally longer and with higher latencies. Also, it is commercially very risky not to terminate your cable where many other cables already terminate, when you do not control terrestrial interconnections.

However, the paradigm of international connectivity has evolved. It is now a matter of connecting data centre clusters to the international network and the international network design and configuration is under the very strong influence of OTTs. In principle, OTTs are not capacity providers, and their constraints differ from the constraints

of private or telco cables.

From several examples above, it is apparent that the network is becoming more meshed and alternative routes are supplementing the traditional congested routes. The systems that will be most successful in the future are likely to be high fibre count and branched systems that can combine the network diversification needed and the connections to existing successful hubs, in other words, the constraints of OTTs and those of private submarine cable networks. STF PATRICK FAIDHERBE started his career in the submarine cable business in 1991. He has been successively involved in industrial, marketing and project management matters. After having worked for two of the main submarine cable system suppliers (Alcatel and Tyco), Patrick has founded Axiom, a consultancy company, where he has been providing his services for 10 years. On the heels of this success, he founded AQEST in 2010 together with Georges Krebs. Mr. Faidherbe has then acquired a solid understanding of industrialization, of manufacturing issues and a deep insight in matters related to costs and marketing of submarine cables, as well as a great experience in consultancy.

GEORGES KREBS started his submarine telecom industry career in 1980, working for France Télécom and Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN). He devoted his entire career to the submarine telecom industry and has been able to acquire direct experience in most of the industry very diverse aspects.

He received various assignments in Singapore (during 4 years), Australia (during 7 years) and France. During all these years, Georges has been able to develop a true passion for submarine telecom and to acquire a very comprehensive experience of this constantly changing activity.

LAURENT CAMPAGNE’s experience in Industrial area, mainly in project management and commercial activities, mainly in project management and commercial activities, started in 1994. In particular, he has worked on the submarine repeaters’ reliability in Liverpool (Australia) before being sent on several marine operations. He then moved to Singapore where he dealt essentially with offers preparation, negotiations with Purchasers Consortiums and project management. He then consolidated its experience by being Director of Lafarge Gypsum France Customer Service, then Regional Sales Director and finally Quality and Environment Director, which offered him the opportunity to get back into Industrial World with a Commercial mind set. In 2014, Laurent came back to the submarine world, “his first love”.

JEAN DEVOS is a key player in the submarine cable telecommunication industry since 1961. Because of his experience and his major involvement in most of the last half century submarine cable systems, Mr. Devos has been one of the key global players that shaped the old and limited submarine cable industry into the high technology, professional and global industry it is today. He is really a global expert since he has been deeply involved in the five continents.

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• Almanac Data Sets • Capacity Pricing • Data Center and Cable Market Studies • Market Sector Reports • Customized Reporting

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THE MAN HISTORY FORGOT (PART 4)

BY STEWART ASH AND BILL BURNS

A

s we described in November’s issue, James Stuart-Wortley and George Saward returned from France in July 1862 with high expectations of attaining French Government support, and there is then a five-month gap in the correspondence collection.

On 2 December 1862, Stuart-Wortley wrote to Josiah Latimer Clark (1822-98), who was the partner of Sir Charles Tilston Bright (1832-88). This letter was written on the same day as an Extraordinary Meeting of the Atlantic Telegraph Co. Clark had been in the Middle East, presumably on consultancy work, and Stuart-Wortley, having met with him on his return, wanted a written record of their conversation. On the recommendation of the late Robert Stephenson (1803-59) and with the approval of the Directors, Stuart-Wortley had offered Clark the position of titular Engineer of the company (possibly as a replacement for Bright). This was to be for the purposes of recovering and reconstituting the existing 1858 cable, and only if they were successful in raising sufficient capital for that purpose would they need the services of an experienced engineer. Until such time, the position was to be ‘merely honorary’. He then explained to Clark that the offering in the company’s latest prospectus had raised only £60,000 to £70,000 of the required £600,000 and that unless at least £300,000 could be promised, the

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Josiah Latimer Clark

project would fall stillborn.

Stuart-Wortley’s next comments were telling: ‘Since then we have had some difficulty in keeping our Company alive, and it has only been the steadiness of the Directors in standing by an undertaking which they believe to be sound, and by personal contributions of individual Directors that we have been able to keep the office open and the rights & privileges of the Company intact during the constant exertions of other parties, by open as well as invidious means to thwart and deprecate our project. I will not refer particularly to the quarter from which I believe this active hostility to have principally come, except to say that it is the last from which in honour it ought to have come considering the profit and honours which its authors

had derived from the early operations of our Company.’

There is little doubt that Stuart-Wortley is alluding to Latimer Clark’s partner, Charles Tilston Bright. He went on to explain that the existing company would be restructured with a new Board of Directors, and that if he were still Chairman, he would recommend that the company should not employ a salaried engineer, but instead rely on the system Contractor for those services. Finally, he thanked Latimer Clark for his services to the Company and Government Commission, ‘notwithstanding your recent commercial & professional connection’ but advised him to apply to Captain Galton for remuneration for his services to the Commission, as he had made it perfectly clear to the Government that the Atlantic Telegraph Co had no funds to defray the cost of the Commission and in any event the use of Clark’s services had been suggested by the late Robert Stephenson (180359). Stephenson had been the preferred Chairman of the Commission, but he died on 12 October 1859 and had to be replaced by Galton.

Now in a somewhat precarious financial position, with no income and having difficulty raising sufficient funds through stock offerings, the Atlantic Telegraph Co set up a Consulting Committee to ‘investigate and advise upon the electrical and mechanical questions involved in the work’. The

Committee’s main task was to take the conclusions of the Board of Trade’s Inquiry on the shortcomings of the 1858 cable and design an improved cable for the next attempt at the Atlantic.

Three former members of the Board of Trade committee, Captain Douglas Galton, Sir William Fairbairn (17981871), and Sir Charles Wheatstone, were joined by Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-87), the Manchester industrialist, and Professor William Thomson (1824-1907) of Glasgow, all of whom ‘gave zealous and gratuitous assistance’ to the Board.

At the same time, a number of influential men were invited to join the Board, perhaps in the hope of also persuading them to invest in the company, but mainly to be able to demonstrate to potential investors that the company had confidence in the project.

On 4 December 1862, Stuart-Wortley received a letter from William Henry Stephenson (1812-98) Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue at the Treasury, accepting the offer of an Honorary Directorship of the Atlantic Telegraph Co. The next letter, dated 12 December, is from the previously mentioned Sir William Fairbairn, 1st Baronet Ardwick. Based in Manchester, he was a Scottish civil and structural engineer, who from 1854 became president of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He also accepted a position on the committee of Honorary Directors. The company was less fortunate with an offer made to the Honourable Robert Grimston (1816-84), younger brother of James Walter Grimston (1809-95), 2nd Earl of Verulam. Robert was a barrister and already a board member of the Electric

Telegraph Co. In his letter of 13 December, he politely declined the offer to join the full board of directors.

John Pender MP Illustrated London News January 1863

James Young Simpson (1811-70)

Towards the end of 1862, the Atlantic Telegraph Company had issued a prospectus for an additional capital of £600,000 in 120,000 shares of £5

each. The directors were now listed as James Stuart-Wortley, Curtis M. Lampson, George Peabody, Francis le Breton, John Pender, John W. Brett, Edward Moon, Samuel Gurney, William Brown, Edward Cropper, Captain A.T. Hamilton, and G.P. Bidder. W.H. Stephenson was now an Honorary Director with Cromwell F. Varley as Electrician Engineer, George Saward as Secretary, and the Consulting Committee as listed above. It is interesting that John Pender is named among the directors. This is not consistent with family correspondence of the period.

In a by-election on 12 December 1862, Pender had been elected as Liberal MP for Totnes.

Pender had agreed to stand, in order to have a voice in the House of Commons to lobby the Government on behalf of the Manchester merchants for the increase of cotton production in India to compensate for the loss of cotton from the Confederate states due to the Unionist blockade of their ports. The cotton industry in the North of England was in dire straits, and at this stage in Pender’s life, textiles was his primary business concern. However, once elected, he took a twenty-one year lease on a London residence, 18 Arlington Street. He was still the Chairman of the British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Co and remained greatly interested in the Atlantic Telegraph. Every time Cyrus Field came to England they would meet and discuss the subject. An additional concern for John Pender at that time was that his wife Emma (1816-80) was still convalescing from two serious operations that had been carried out in the summer of 1861 by JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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the Scottish pioneering doctor James Young Simpson (1811-70).

The most likely explanation for Pender’s name being included in the prospectus is that he had agreed to lend his name to the proposal on the basis that if the capital were raised, he would re-join the Board.

The initial uptake on commitments to buy shares was not encouraging, so Stuart-Wortley set out on a roadshow tour in the hope of attracting investors from some of the great industrial cities of the North of England. On 10 February 1863, he met with merchants and manufacturers in Sheffield, not far from the ancestral home of the Wortleys, and this was repeated in Liverpool and Manchester.

A letter from George Saward to Stuart-Wortley, dated 8 May 1863, advised him that ‘all matters are now settled with Glass & Co – They have signed the Contract and subscribed our book for £40,000’. This was only a preliminary contract for the cable, as we will see later, but the Atlantic Telegraph Co was now in a position to continue planning the great project, and at the same time, despite the Civil War, Cyrus Field was doing the same work in America. As a result of these combined efforts, a subscription list for a total of £300,535 was in place by the end of May 1863.

Meanwhile, in France, perhaps concerned by the progress being made by the Atlantic Telegraph Co, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs convened an international conference to examine a project for a telegraph line to connect Europe to the American continent. The proposed route would run from the Cape de Verde islands to

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the Brazils, and from there to North America via the Antilles. Unsurprisingly, the Viscount de Vougy was involved in this. Again, nothing came of this proposal, and France’s first transatlantic cable was not laid until 1869, made and laid by the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Co, and largely supported by British finance. It used a conventional route from Brest in France to Saint-Pierre et Miquelon (off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada), with an extension to Duxbury, Massachusetts. This cable would be

Portrait of John Pender. Attributed to George Frederic Watts 1864

acquired by Pender through the Anglo-American Telegraph Co in 1873 and diverted to the UK. As 1863 advanced, further progress was made, but there was still a large gap between the subscribed capital and the required £600,000, a gap that neither Glass, Elliot & Co nor the Gutta Percha Co felt able to bridge.

This was the situation that existed when

Cyrus Field returned to England. It was then that Richard Atwood Glass (1820-73), the Managing Director of Glass, Elliot, made the suggestion to him that the only way this gap could be bridged would be for a single company to be responsible for the supply of entire project. Cyrus Field put this concept to John Pender during a one-mile stroll from Pender’s Arlington Street residence to the Houses of Parliament and, as we know, Pender thought this eminently possible and took on the challenge of making it happen. Stuart-Wortley’s role in what happened next is unrecorded, but it was probably significant.

On 16 March 1864, the Ordinary Annual Meeting of the Atlantic Telegraph Company took place, and Stuart-Wortley lavished praise on Cyrus Field, noting that: ‘I cannot help especially alluding to Mr. Cyrus Field, who is present today, and who has crossed the Atlantic thirty-one times in the service of this Company, having celebrated at his table yesterday the anniversary of the tenth year of the day when he first left Boston in the service of the Company.’

Stuart-Wortley must also have been party to the planning and directly involved in the re-appointment of John Pender to the Board of the Atlantic Telegraph Co, which occurred the day after the meeting. It is probably fair to say that due in large part to the groundwork already done by James Stuart-Wortley, the re-engagement of John Pender in the project was to become the catalyst for progress to finally gather pace.

At first, the Directors of the Gutta Percha Co and Glass, Elliot & Co were difficult to convince about the

benefits of a merger, but Pender was able to obtain their support by putting up a personal guarantee of a quarter of a million pounds (today around £14 million). This was an incredible show of confidence in the business opportunity and because of it, on 7 April 1864 the Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company (generally known as Telcon) was formed, with Pender as its first Chairman, and the directors commissioned a portrait to be painted of John Pender, to hang in Telcon’s Board Room in Old Broad Street in London. This is the first known portrait of Pender and it hung there until Telcon merged with BICC on 9 February 1959. As part of the reorganisation of the merged companies the Telcon headquarters, and with it the Board Room, were no longer required.

On 20 March 1961, Sir John Dean, the Chairman of Telcon, wrote to John Jocelyn Denison-Pender (1907-65), the great grandson of John Pender and the 2nd Baron Porthcurnow, who was at that time the effective head of Cable & Wireless (C&W ), offering the portrait to the company. John Jocelyn would become the Chairman of C&W, replacing 85-year-old Sir Edward Wilshaw (1879-1968) when he retired in 1964. John Jocelyn wrote back to Dean the following day and accepted his offer. The portrait was transferred to C&W in June that year, at which time John Jocelyn had it cleaned, and assessed by experts, who attributed it to George Frederic Watts (1817-1904). When John Jocelyn died on 21 March 1965, the portrait was given to John Willoughby Denison-Pender (1933-2016), 3rd Baron Porthcurnow, and it remains part of

the Denison-Pender family archive.

On Friday 15 April 1864, Cyrus Field held an Inauguration Banquet for the ‘Renewal of the Atlantic Telegraph Company (After a lapse of Six

and a renowned orator, probably best known for his role in the repeal of the corn laws. Like John Pender, he was an opponent of Gladstone’s plans for Home Rule for Ireland.

Charles Francis Adams & John Bright

Years)’ at the Palace Hotel in London.

As was common with many cable banquets and celebrations in this period, the main purpose of the event was almost certainly fundraising and policy making, with all the key figures in the cable industry on the guest list, as well as a number of politicians. Cyrus Field introduced two special guests: ‘His Excellency Charles Francis Adams, the American Minister’, and ‘a distinguished member of the British House of Commons, John Bright.’. Adams (1807-86) was the US Envoy to the UK at the time, and Bright (1811-89) was a Manchester businessman who had invested in the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1856. Bright was a Liberal MP from 1843 until his death

On 4 May 1864, Telcon was awarded a contract for a new cable by the Atlantic Telegraph Co, replacing the contract with Glass Elliot, something that Stuart-Wortley must have approved.

Now what was needed was a single ship that could carry the load of 2,000 miles of cable. Earlier that same year, on 14 January, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s great iron ship, originally named Leviathan and now the failed passenger liner SS Great Eastern, had been put up for auction in the Cotton Room of the Liverpool Exchange. A reserve of £50,000 had been placed on her, but no offers that met this reserve were received.

It was then announced that a second auction would take place in three weeks, with no reserve. This gave the opporJANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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BACK REFLECTION tunity for a consortium led by Daniel Gooch (1816-89) and Thomas Brassey (1805-70), supported by John Pender, to purchase the Great Eastern for £25,000, despite the ship having an estimated value of upwards of £100,000.

The Great Eastern Steamship Co was formed with Daniel Gooch as its Chairman and Pender as one of its Directors. The vessel was chartered to Telcon for £50,000 worth of their

years, and negotiated the secondment of Captain James Anderson (1824-90).

The SS Great Eastern was placed under his command, with Robert Halpin (1836-94) as First Mate.

The Great Eastern was too large to sail up the Thames to Greenwich for the cable to be loaded, so she was anchored at Sheerness and the cable was moved to the ship section by section, using hulks each carrying 150 nautical

went well until 2 August, when, with only 600nm left to deploy, the cable parted and was lost in deep water.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to recover it, until on 11 August they ran out of lifting tackle and the struggle was abandoned.

In the document collection there are two charts; the first one, signed by James Anderson, plots the progress of the lay, and at the point where the cable was lost it is annotated with the following note: ‘Aug 2 Cable parted.

3 times hooked again Wit grapnel. Each time The grapnel gear breaking

James Anderson & Robert Halpin

shares and converted for cable work.

As part of this refit, one of her five funnels, the second from the stern, had to be removed to make room for one of the three massive cable tanks. Telcon needed an experienced Captain and crew to undertake this unique operation and, once again, John Pender took it upon himself to solve this problem.

Pender approached Charles MacIver (1812-85), Managing Director of the Cunard Shipping Line for over thirty

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miles of cable. They were loaded at Telcon’s Enderby and Morden Wharf factories then towed downriver to Sheerness. Over a period of several months in early 1865 the entire cable was transferred to Great Eastern by the hulks and distributed among the three large tanks onboard the vessel.

The Great Eastern sailed from Sheerness on 15 July 1865 and, as is well documented, the laying operation from Valentia towards Newfoundland

The second is a chartlet covering the initial attempts to recover the cable between 2 & 9 of August, overlaid with a small drawing depicting the attempts made on 10 & 11 August. This chartlet is signed by Henry Augustus Moriarty (1815-1906), a Royal Navy Staff Commander who sailed with the expedition, and we know that he was instrumental in carrying out revised calculations to establish the cable’s position for the latter two attempts.

A buoy was deployed to mark the position and the Great Eastern returned to England, arriving at Sheerness on 20 August. During the return passage, Daniel Gooch, who was also on board, wrote a letter to a friend in which he expressed confidence that they could return the following year and complete the project. However, it was not that easy, as the Atlantic Cable Co had again run out of money, and for legal reasons was unable to

Captain James Anderson’s 1865 Lay Chart

raise new capital. There is no mention in the document collection as to how Stuart-Wortley took this major disappointment. He was still struggling with back pain and associated bouts of depression, so we can only imagine the impact on his already fragile health.

The collection contains four letters from the end of 1865, after the Great Eastern had returned to England. The first is from Stuart-Wortley to James Anderson, dated 14 November and written on the headed notepaper of Credit Foncier and Mobilier of England Ltd, a company of which Stuart-Wortley was also the Chairman. It appears that there had been speculation in the press that the cable was irrevocably lost, as it was believed that the marker buoy would sink over the winter months. Stuart-Wortley had received confirmation from Sir

Henry Moriarty’s Initial Grapnel Chart and the Overlay

Edward Cunard (1816-69), owner of the shipping line and then resident in America, that the same stories were circulating on that side of the Atlantic. It should be remembered that Anderson was an employee of Cunard and Stuart-Wortley was asking him for an opinion that he could place before the Board and shareholders to scotch these rumours. Anderson replied two days later, and the opening sentence of the letter, written in his cabin on the Great Eastern, is as follows: ‘In reply to yours of the 14th inst I can again assure you that the Buoys placed near the end of the Atlantic Cable were never expected to remain there longer than a few days are not of any consequence whatever.’

He then went on to describe in some detail why this JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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BACK REFLECTION

was so, how they had set about fixing the cable position, and the sequence of grappling attempts, concluding as follows: ‘I really feel that I am not unreasonable nor yet too sanguine in believing that with one more chance we must succeed in both our Objects’ This letter appeared to be just what Stuart-Wortley was looking for, and he intended to use it in some way to rebuild public confidence in the project. We can only speculate what happened next, but Anderson appears to have become concerned, because he wrote again to Stuart-Wortley on 20 November indicating that Samuel Canning at Telcon had some concerns with what Stuart-Wortley planned to do and asked him to send his previous letter to Canning. It appears Stuart-Wortley acceded to this request, because on 22 November Samuel Canning wrote a terse, indignant letter to Stuart-Wortley: ‘I avail myself of this opportunity to remind you, that all matters relating to the laying of the cable and raising the cable are entirely within the province of the Engineer, and to the Captain belong all questions as to the navigation of the ship.

I feel compelled to write thus because I am advised that the public are led to believe by such published correspondence that the whole responsibility and direction of this important work is and has been vested in Captain Anderson which in justice to myself and those employed with me I cannot allow to proceed further without giving it a contradiction.’

Clearly, Stuart-Wortley’s intent to counter public scepticism by using the

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opinion of a well-known and respected Captain had crossed boundaries and upset Telcon’s management.

As is well known, the two Atlantic cables were successful completed the following year, but there would be more battles for James Stuart-Wortley to fight, and we will relate these in our final article in the March issue. STF

BILL BURNS is an English electronics engineer who worked for the BBC in London after graduation before moving to New York in 1971. There he spent a number of years in the high-end audio industry, during which time he wrote many audio, video, and computer equipment reviews, along with magazine articles on subjects as diverse as electronic music instruments and the history of computing.

His research for these articles led to a general interest in early technology, and in the 1980s he began collecting instruments and artifacts from the fields of electricity and communications.

In 1994 a chance find of a section of the 1857 Atlantic cable inspired a special interest in undersea cable history, and soon after he set up the first version of the Atlantic Cable website <https://atlantic-cable. com>, which now has over a thousand pages on all aspect of undersea communications from 1850 until the present.

Bill’s interest in cable history has taken him to all of the surviving telegraph cable stations around the world, and to archives and museums in North America and Europe. He has presented papers on subsea cable history at a number of conferences, and in 2008 he instigated and helped organize the 150th Anniversary Celebration for the 1858 Atlantic cable at the New-York Historical Society.

Most recently, in 2016 he was involved with the celebrations in London, Ireland and Newfoundland to mark the 150th anniversary of the 1866 Atlantic cable.

Since graduating in 1970, STEWART ASH has spent his entire career in the submarine cable industry. He joined STC Submarine Systems as a development engineer, working on coaxial transmission equipment and submarine repeater design. He then transferred onto f ield engineering, installing coaxial submarine cable systems around the world, attaining the role of

Shipboard Installation Manager. In 1986, he set up a new installation division to install f ibre optic submarine systems. In 1993, he joined Cable & Wireless Marine, as a business development manager and then move to an account director role responsible for, among others the parent company, C&W. When Cable & Wireless Marine became Global Marine Systems Ltd in 1999, he became General Manager of the engineering division, responsible for system testing, jointing technology and ROV operation. As part of this role he was chairman of the UJ Consortium. He left Global Marine in 2005 to become an independent consultant, assisting system purchasers and owners in all aspects of system procurement, operations, maintenance and repair.

Stewart’s interest in the history of submarine cables began in 2000, when he project managed a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the submarine cable industry. As part of this project he co-authored and edited From Elektron to ‘e’ Commerce. Since then he has written and lectured extensively on the history of the submarine cable industry. From March 2009 to November 2015 he wrote Back Reflection articles for SubTel Forum. In 2013 he was invited to contribute the opening chapter to Submarine Cables: The Handbook of Law and Policy, which covered the early development of the submarine cable industry. To support the campaign to save Enderby House—a Grade II listed building— from demolition, in 2015 he wrote two books about the history of the Telcon site at Enderby Wharf on the Greenwich Peninsula in London.

The f irst was The Story of Subsea Telecommunications and its Association with Enderby House, and the second was The Eponymous Enderby’s of Greenwich. His biography of Sir John Pender GCMG The Cable King was published by Amazon in April 2018.

ON THE MOVE In November 2020, FiberLight appointed CHRIS RABII as CEO. “I am excited to take the reins at FiberLight, which recently recapitalized the business to focus on its mission-critical fiber network deployments throughout Texas and the Northern Virginia markets,” commented Chris Rabii, CEO of FiberLight. “I look forward to working with Jim Lynch and the entire management team at FiberLight as we expand our network and service capabilities to meet our customers’ evolving capacity and diversity requirements.”

In January 2021, WFN Strategies named HECTOR HERNANDEZ as Projects Director.

“2020 was a transformative year for WFN, and we rose to an unprecedented challenge – not only with our client reps in-field but also from an internal logistics angle,” said Hernandez. “Tackling management from this new position gives me the toolbox necessary to take this company into the new year with a bang.”

In January, WFN Strategies also announced the promotion of KRISTIAN NIELSEN to Quality and Fulfillment Director. “The last year threw just about every curveball we could imagine, and then some; we had to adapt to the changing requirements almost daily, and that’s one of the amazing things working with WFN,” Nielsen said. “The flexibility of working in an agile company like this is hard to match. I am thrilled to be part of the team that will take WFN into the next generation of the submarine fiber industry.”

In January, NJFX announced the appointment of MIKE REVERENDO as the Site Access Manager to Ovesee Safety and Security. “We are thrilled to welcome Mr. Reverendo to the NJFX team and look forward to learning from him as he serves as liaison to the government entities that we must continue to form solid relationships with,” stated Gil Santaliz, CEO, NJFX. “He will also receive ongoing training from federal authorities to keep the NJFX facility safe and secure.”

HAVE EXCITING EMPLOYMENT NEWS TO SHARE WITH THE INDUSTRY? LET US KNOW! EMAIL ON-THE-MOVE@SUBTELFORUM.COM

JANUARY 2021 | ISSUE 116

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NEWS NEWS

NOW

CABLE FAULTS & MAINTENANCE

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Two international undersea optical cables, IA and APG, had problems

New Cable Laying Ship From Prysmian Group Will Join The Fleet This Year

Conferences & Associations

Could rising sea levels threaten our ability to communicate?

Elaine Stafford of DRG Undersea Consulting breaks down the upcoming PTC’21 Virtual Conference

U.S. senators Cruz, Rubio warn Pacific ally on Chinese bid for undersea cable project

CURRENT SYSTEMS

Lisbon eyes undersea cable investment to bolster EU tech infrastructure Orange Marine to build new cable ship

ALVAL/ORVAL Cable System in Service

Regional Trade Boost for Cyber, Digital and Data

NEC completes submarine cable system for BSNL connecting Chennai, India and the A&N Islands

SUBTEL FORUM

Hawaiki and Hawaiian Telecom Announce ‘Milestone’ Agreement

WFN Strategies Installs Two New Directors

AEC-2 Successfully launched by Aqua Comms Hawaiki Further Boosts Subsea Network

DATA CENTERS DC/FOTM Subsea Control Infrastructure For Northern Lights CO2 Transport And Storage Project Telxius to land the Grace Hopper Subsea Cable at its Derio Communications Hub in Bilbao Datagrid and Meridian partner to build NZ’s first hyperscale data centre in Invercargill

FUTURE SYSTEMS NEC to Supply Palau Cable 2 ICE6 Trial on MAREA Trans-Atlantic Cable Yields Two Record Results EllaLink: “the new submarine cable between Europe and Latin America will reduce the current latency by 50%, to below 60 milliseconds” CanArctic Inuit Networks’ SednaLink Fibre to eliminate Nunavut and Nunatsiavut Connectivity Crisis by November 2022 Hexatronic to Supply Unrepeatered Cable for CrossChannel Cable System Telxius to land the Grace Hopper Subsea Cable at its Derio Communications Hub in Bilbao New Arctic cable will accelerate traffic between Europe and Asia New Submarine Cable in India To Connect Kochi and Lakshadweep Islands Third submarine cable approved by Government of Bangladesh Cyta starts construction of submarine cable connecting Cyprus to France, Egypt

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Subtel Forum’s Top 10 News Stories of 2020 Submarine Cable Almanac – Issue 36 Out Now! SubTel Forum Magazine #115 – Data Centers and New Technology – OUT NOW!

TECHNOLOGY & UPGRADES Telecom Egypt provides Google with a TransEgypt meshed solution and Mediterranean capacity to Europe Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. creates first optical fiber with ultra-low transmission loss for mass production Fugro opens remote operations centre (ROC) in Abu Dhabi

ADVERTISE WITH US!

THE VOICE OF THE SUBMARINE CABLE INDUSTRY

FOR MEDIA & SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION VISIT: SUBTELFORUM.COM/ADVERTISING MARCH 2020 | ISSUE 111

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ADVERTISER CORNER Dear Readers,

M

y name is Terri Jones, and I am the Sales Manager for SubTel Forum. A warm hello to all I already know, and a gracious invitation for all others to connect with me for opportunity updates.

First, I’d like to personally thank all of our sponsors from 2020! Without your loyal support, this year would have been impossible to work through.

2020 has been hard on everyone, between the isolation of quarantines and the loss of many industry conferences, marketing is harder than it ever has been. Which is why, now, more than ever, is the time you reach out to your clients, future clients, vendors and peers to keep them updated on your strong brands. The submarine telecoms industry is strong, viable, and growing - however, our in-person outreach is limited.

This is the year to spring into the next, take the virtual opportunities by the horns and propel your brand visibility in 2021 To that end, below is a brief recap of our publications for your 2021 planning. All include additional online promotion as part of benefits. Please, reach out to me for details.

WHAT WE HAVE COMING UP IN 2021 • Over 100K downloads per issue.

Two months exposure.

• Rates start as low at $1,750.

May: Global Capacity July: Regional Systems September: Offshore Energy November: Data Centers/New Technology

2021 Topics: January: Global Outlook March: Finance & Legal

Sponsorship Benefits: • Complimentary tile web banner (visible on SubTel news feed)

SUBTEL FORUM MAGAZINE

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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE

• 30 second promotional video (FullPage and Two-Page Spread only) • Social media acknowledgment (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter) • Acknowledgment in announcement Press Release and mailer

SUBTEL FORUM ALMANAC

• Over 525K downloads per issue.

Three months exposure.

• Quarterly cost: $5,000 Sponsorship Benefits: • Exclusive sponsor of next issue • Logo and link on cover and acknowledgment on publication webpage • Single page ad (8.5 x 11) near front of document • 30 second promotional video • Complimentary tile web banner (visible on SubTel news feed) • Social media acknowledgment (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter) • Acknowledgment in announcement Press Release and mailer

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE OUR NEWEST OPPORTUNITY FOR SPONSORS: SUB TEL FORUM ONLINE CABLE MAP

If you haven’t had the chance, use this link to the Online Cable Map to explore our many layers.

• Monthly rate: $1,500 • You can now add a 30 Second Promotional Video.

• Do a talking head about your company or promote something specific. The sky’s the limit!

Sponsorship Benefits: • One month sponsorship of the layer of your choice (details below) • Optional 30 second promotional Video • 50-75 word Company Description or Company Announcement • Logo/Link on your layer • Complimentary tile web banner (visible on SutTel news feed) • Social media acknowledgment (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter)

• Acknowledgment in announcement Press Release Sponsorship layer options/descriptions: • In-Service Cables – details of more than 250 cable systems, updated bi-weekly • Planned Cables – more than 50 cable systems, updated bi-weekly • Cableships – location and status of more than 45 cableships accomplishing both cable installation and repair activities, updated every 6 hours • Data Centers – more than 1,700 data centers; grouped by company owners, updated quarterly • Offshore Facilities – representing more than 40 offshore O&G facilities, both planned and in-service, updated bi-weekly And, last, but certainly not least:

SUBTEL FORUM PRINT CABLE MAP

Sponsorship Benefits: • Complimentary tile web banner (visible on SubTel news feed) • Social media acknowledgment (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter) • Acknowledgment in announcement Press Release and mailer I thank you for taking the time to review, and your consideration. Please reach out with any questions or suggestions.

And, once again, a very special thanks to our current and future sponsors. Let’s keep our industry thriving! STF Stay safe.

• Yearly logo cost: $3,750

Terri Jones

This beautiful, large format print map showcases every major international submarine cable system, and we are proud to say, hangs in many offices in our industry.

As we are gearing up for 2021 production, so, please let me know, ASAP, if you would like to include your logo on this highly visible venue.

Sales Manager, SubTel Forum tjones@subtelforum.com TERRI JONES is Sales Manager for Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc. For over 20 years, she was in the business of buying… media that is. Terri was managing million dollar buys with a variety of advertising agencies, such as Media Reactions and Time Life, buying time on radio and television for client advertising. She f irst joined SubTel Forum in 2018 to support sales of the SubOptic 2019 Conference in New Orleans , which was managed

by STF Events. Since then, she has been responsible for sales in all of the SubTel Forum products and publications such as the Magazine, Submarine Cable Almanac, Cable Map and Industry Report.

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