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EXORDIUM
BY WAYNE NIELSEN
One of the industry scions I have known literally as long as I could spell “cable” used to talk about how cut-throat competitors could both compete and cooperate; that in the latter case, for the good of us all. The idealist inside likes that thought, though I must admit, the Friedmanian might find a few issues.
So, there I was on mile 19. Just ten miles earlier a guy behind me had suffered a suspected heart attack and people around me were now dropping like flies. Thankfully, I had made it through the “gauntlet” where the bus picks up those too slow to finish in time, and now I faced the longest, hottest concrete creation ever imagined to the breaking spirit, the dreaded 14th Street Bridge. Now bear in mind that I have conquered this bridge before, but each time is different, memorable, hard.
Because Washington, DC was built on a swamp, the bridge begins about maybe a half mile or so before even the Potomac
River, so greenhorn marathoners have this false impression that the bridge isn’t so bad. And that’s where I found myself on that hot Sunday noontime running next to this limping twenty-something pushing through the significant pain of her first race.
When you’re a plodder like me, you’re racing with, not against others. Your collective job is to cheer each other forward despite the heat, the cramps, the selfdoubt. You feed off each other’s positive nature and encourage those who are crashing around you. And when this young limping racer asked me how far to the end of the bridge I faced a simple moral dilemma. Do I give some canned rosy cheering “at-a-girl” answer, or do I tell her the simple, unadulterated, non-varnished truth?
When Ted Breeze and I established our little magazine 15 years ago, our hope was to get
enough interest to keep it going for a while. We were building on our previous successes of “Soundings” and “Real Time” from BT Marine and SAIC, respectively, and we realized that the industry that had sustained us was headed into a dark time; it would need a place to express itself like never before. So, we kicked around a few ideas, talked with a few trusted
‘Uncle’ Ted at my family’s 4th of July Party, Lyndhurst, England – 1993
industry friends, and took a BIG chance. And in November 2001, just after 9/11 and the start of our largest industry downturn, and with a budget consisting of the balance of a severance package from me and some “borrowed” software and pics from him, we published our first issue, which consisted of eight articles and seven complimentary advertisements. Both the initial authors and sponsors showed us a tremendous amount of faith.
In 2004, we produced our first submarine cable map for purchase; our break-even was probably 20 copies and I think we sold maybe 25 or so. We also produced that year our first industry calendar, which is funded through monthly sponsorships and forwarded freely to 3,000 industry contacts.
In 2008, we created an updated sponsorship-based submarine cable map, which was also forwarded freely to our contacts; the model of which we have kept to today. We then added an industry RSS news-feed to our website. Also, that year, SubOptic selected us to act as Media Partner in support of their upcoming 2010 Yokohama conference, growing an already long-standing relationship.
With Ted’s premature death and the eventual addition of Kevin,
Kristian, Kier and Stephen, and a boatload of others years later, we took the original idea and expanded it in several different and complimentary ways, including new products like Cable Almanac (2011), Industry Report (2012), and Submarine Cables of the World Online Map (2016).
We have appreciated literally hundreds of articles from as many international authors from our industry on significant far-reaching topics. Some have merely informed; others have incited angry reaction; all have enhanced the discussion within our community. Through good times and terrible times, we have attempted to keep the vantage clear and concise. Hopefully, we have succeeded more times than not.
We have always published SubTel Forum with two key founding principles always in mind, which annually I reaffirm to you, our readers:
1. That we will provide a wide range of ideas and issues;
2. That we will seek to incite, entertain and provoke in a positive manner.
…And what of that limping twenty-something on the bridge, I told her the truth – that this bridge is longer than it seems, that it will be a bear on this especially hot day, that you can do it if you press forward. And then she asked me how I knew, and I told her simply that I’d done it 21 times before; and if I can do it, so can you.
Thank you for our 15th anniversary and as always, for honoring us with your interest.
Good reading,
Wayne Nielsen is the Founder and Publisher of Submarine Telecoms Forum, and previously in 1991, founded and published “Soundings”, a print magazine developed for then BT Marine. In 1998, he founded and published for SAIC the magazine, “Real Time”, the industry’s first electronic magazine. He has written a number of industry papers and articles over the years, and is the author of two published novels, Semblance of Balance (2002, 2014) and Snake Dancer’s Song (2004).
+1.703.444.2527
So, here’s to you, our readers and supporters.
wnielsen@subtelforum.com
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Aqua Comms Successfully Tests Advanced Transatlantic Submarine Communications Technology With Ciena
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STF #90 Available Now
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Submarine Cable Maintenance Near Singapore May Lead to Internet Disruption from Sunday
SubTel Forum Celebrates 15 Years in Publishing
Tanzania: Internet Interruption As Sea Cable Maintenance Starts
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TE SubCom Supplies MAREA Submarine Cable System
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UPDATE: Telefonica Scraps
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Vocus-Nextgen Networks
AU$861m Acquisition Cleared by Regulator
WFN Strategies Receives 8th Best of Washington Award for Telecommunications Consultancy
WFN Strategies to Accomplish Cable Route Feasibility Study for Nunavik, Nunavut and Nunatsiavut
SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEM REPORTING
Presenting the industry’s most extensive collection of 375+ current and planned submarine cable systems impacting financiers, carriers, cable owners, system suppliers, component manufacturers and marine contractors, and detailing more than 50 menu-based data fields and maps in a customer-customizable report.
REPORTING IN 5 BUSINESS DAYS
THE DECLINE OF THIRD PARTY UPGRADERS
BY KIERAN CLARK
Until recently, wavelength upgrades have been an immensely popular option for submarine cable owners. The wide variety of upgrade suppliers resulted in fiercely competitive prices, allowing owners to increase capacity for extremely low cost. However, in the last two years the market dynamic for wavelength upgrades has completely changed. There are few systems left that would benefit from the jump to 100G, and many upgrades over the last two years are simply adding channels and go largely unreported.
Welcome to SubTel Forum’s annual Upgrade issue. This month, we will look at upgrade activity across the globe, and try to determine what the future holds. The data used in this article is obtained from the public domain and is tracked by
the ever evolving STF Analytics database, where products like the Almanac, Cable Map, Online Cable Map and Industry Report find their roots.
At this time last year, a total of 74 reported wavelength upgrades have been performed around the globe, including systems that have been upgraded more than once. One year later, there have been an additional nine wavelength upgrades, bringing the worldwide total to 83 upgrades. For four years straight the industry saw an ever increasing amount of upgrades being performed as systems work to keep up with global capacity demands, but the last two years have seen a sharp decline in activity.
While wavelength upgrades give system owners a way to stay competitive at a fraction of
the cost of entirely new systems, at some point systems can only be upgraded so much further. With the bulk of systems along high traffic routes already being on the latest and greatest technology, there has simply been nowhere to go in recent years. Indeed, some systems have upgraded capacity so heavily that they run the risk of affecting their revenue by oversupplying large amounts of cheap bandwidth.
The 100G wavelength upgrade continues to be the most prevalent, having been available since 2010. The market share of other technologies continues to shrink, as system owners keep up with capacity demands by jumping to the latest available wavelength technology. However, expect these numbers to remain static for the foreseeable future. It is possible
that some existing systems may be able to upgrade to 150G and 200G in the future, but it remains to be seen if those end up being cost effective upgrades. As they are newer technologies with stricter requirements, it may not be worth the cost to only double existing bandwidth on a system. The promised 400G that has been talked about for several years will almost certainly not materialize as an upgrade to existing systems. The technology limitations of most current systems will not allow for them to upgrade to 400G.
While 150G and 200G wavelength technology is already seeing use on brand new systems, to date there have been no systems that have performed a wavelength upgrade using these technologies. Like 20G technology, expect 150G and 200G to be niche upgrades
unless system owners become desperate for more bandwidth. The future of wavelength upgrade technology is in limbo right now, as existing systems have largely exhausted their options and newer technology is potentially incompatible.
The vast majority of upgraded systems have only been upgraded a single time. With 100G having been made available as early as 2010, it’s no surprise to see that most systems have only been upgraded once. The longest a system has been active before being upgraded was 18 years, while the shortest amount of time was a single year of service. Of the 70 total systems that have been upgraded, the average age before being upgraded for the first time is just over 8 years. With 150G and 200G wavelength technology beginning to enter commercial
From shore to shore
service, it will be interesting to see if more recent systems decide to upgrade and start bringing that average down.
Due to technology limitations of 400G preventing most current systems from utilizing that upgrade path, expect the low rate of wavelength upgrades observed over the last two years to continue. With bandwidth demand continuing to increase dramatically each year, new cable systems instead of upgrades will be required to keep up.
While nearly every region has seen at least some wavelength upgrade activity, the Americas and EMEA region have seen the most. This should come as little surprise, as these are two of the largest regions in the world. A wavelength capacity upgrade can allow more customers to be served, and potentially
drive out new systems by meeting or exceeding current bandwidth demands. Because of owners trying to stay on top of the competition, 24 systems in the Americas have received wavelength upgrades, with 23 in the EMEA region. Out of all systems upgraded since 2010, these two regions account for more than half of all upgrades by themselves.
There are many companies that provide upgrade services, but two companies in particular had managed to carve out their own niche in the submarine telecoms industry by focusing heavily on upgrades. Ciena and Infinera account for half of all global upgrade activity since 2010. In general, upgrades have given equipment suppliers a new way to generate revenue, rather
Upgrade Activity 2010-2016
than relying on manufacturing entirely new systems. While the money brought in from performing an upgrade is much less than building an entirely new system, it is perhaps a more consistent form of income.
However, now that wavelength upgrades have slowed down and existing systems having little room to grow, expect most
of these third-party upgrade suppliers to reduce their market activity significantly. Based on publicly announced projects, Infinera and Ciena — by far the busiest upgraders in the industry — have only performed a single wavelength upgrade since 2014.
Recent trends have shown wavelength upgrade activity come to a screeching halt. Third-
Upgrades by Region 2010-2016
party upgrade suppliers have been hit particularly hard, and continue to wind down their market presence. These days, system suppliers tend to include future system upgrades as part of the supply contract, cutting out competition even further. While new wavelength technologies have become available, their cost effectiveness compared to past upgrade solutions remains questionable at best — and that is even if they can be used on existing systems. The one bright spot in all of this is that meeting future bandwidth demands will almost certainly require new system builds, which could be better for the submarine fiber industry as a whole.
Kieran Clark is an Analyst for Submarine Telecoms Forum. He joined the company in 2013 as a Broadcast Technician to provide support for live event video streaming. In 2014, Kieran was promoted to Analyst and is currently responsible for the research and maintenance that supports the SubTel Forum International Submarine Cable Database; his analysis is featured in almost the entire array of SubTel Forum publications. He has 4+ years of live production experience and has worked alongside some of the premier organizations in video web streaming.
THE NEXT WAVE OF COHERENT OPTICAL
ADVANCED COHERENT TOOLS TO IMPROVE CAPACITY-REACH PERFORMANCE OF SUBSEA SYSTEMS BY ABHIJIT CHITAMBAR AND SCOTT JACKSON
The insatiable demand for bandwidth continues to drive the need for networks to scale. Gartner cites that by 2020, over 20 billion devices are expected to be connected as the Internet of Things becomes pervasive. A recent IBM Global Business Services report highlights that by that same year, 70% of businesses are expected to be cloudenabled. Telegeography shows a dramatic increase in private traffic versus internet traffic, a signal that bandwidth between the data centers of top Internet content providers is rapidly accelerating. This exponential growth in bandwidth is driving operators to invest in highly scalable network technologies, and for subsea systems, this means driving advances that deliver the highest possible fiber capacity on undersea cable investments.
You Will Never Sell All That Capacity!
TAT-8 was revolutionary when it launched in 1988 as the first optical subsea cable. It carried about 40,000 telephone circuits between Britain, France and the United States more than the combined capacity of all previous undersea cables combined. Some ridiculed the deployed capacity, surmising that the Atlantic may never need more capacity. By the 1990s,
new cables were being deployed where each fiber again doubled the capacity of TAT-8, and this story has been repeated in the years that followed...
Transport Bandwidth Step Functions
TAT-8 used intensity-modulation direct-detection, a transmission technology that would serve for decades, from single-carrier through the dramatic capacity increases of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and into the super-channel era. Superchannels, where multiple WDM carriers are bundled and routed, provide a way to quickly access spectral capacity that scales WDM without scaling operations. A range of additional benefits can be delivered by implementing super-channel technology using large scale, multi-wavelength photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology. The most obvious is that a single line card brought into service in a single operational cycle can now deliver large WDM capacities, while still delivering exceptional transmission performance. Additionally, a significant reduction in complexity and increased system reliability is achieved through large scale photonic integration.
The next jump in capacity came with the development of coherent
transmission technologies. When combined with integrated optics, 500 Gb/s coherent superchannels started delivering large capacities over longer distances as early as 2012. Yet the pace of innovation did not slow, and coherent modulation techniques continued to evolve. In 2016 a next-generation PIC and DSP optical engine was introduced offering network operators the combined benefits of optical super-channel capacity up to 2.4 terabits per second (Tb/s) with reach of up to 12,000 kilometers (km). New coherent modulation techniques increase the overall capacity-reach product on fibers, including some techniques that leverage pairs of wavelengths in super-channel implementations.
Advanced Coherent Toolkit
The new generation of coherent DSP acts on both transmitter and receiver signals to significantly increase spectral efficiency. These advanced coherent tools improve fiber capacity-reach performance using Nyquist subcarriers, soft-decision forward error correction (SDFEC) gain sharing, matrixenhanced phase shift keying (ME-PSK) modulation and other advanced coherent techniques— all of which we cover in more depth here.
Nyquist Subcarriers
Using advanced DSP functions feeding digital-to-analog converters driving signal lasers, each optical carrier can be
modulated into multiple closelyspaced Nyquist subcarriers (see Figure 1). This technique delivers subcarriers with individual baud rates much lower than the data rate of a channel. The effect in optical transport networks, as highlighted in Figure 1, is dramatically improved tolerance of non-linear impairments. Each subcarrier has optimum spectral width, and thus minimizes self-phase modulation, crossphase modulation and fourwave mixing. This increased tolerance to non-linear channel impairments results in increased capacity and reach.
Soft-decision Forward Error Correction Gain Sharing
A transmission channel does not present the same impairments across the usable spectrum, with channels near the edge of the band or channels near a dispersion zero seeing additional impairments from noise or nonlinearities. The result can be widely varying quality factors
(Qs) across the channel. Using SD-FEC gain sharing, the FEC output from two channels can be mathematically combined so that the excess Q of the stronger channel enhances the Q of the weaker channel. Gain sharing can allow an unusable channel operating below acceptable Q limits to be boosted to above acceptable thresholds where it can contribute to total capacity. Likewise, a weak channel may be boosted to higher modulation levels and deliver more capacity.
Figure 2 illustrates the benefit of SD-FEC gain sharing. Paired channels are selected so that a channel below the Q limit can be made usable by utilizing excess margin from a high-Q channel.
Matrix-enhanced Phase Shift
Keying
For very long reach systems, special modulations must be employed to overcome noise and nonlinear impairments.
Matrix-enhanced Phase Shift
Keying (ME-PSK) is a recentlyinvented modulation scheme that has the same spectral efficiency as traditional binary phase-shift keying (BPSK). ME-PSK leverages enhanced constellation coding techniques to deliver higher Q than BPSK. Thus the advent of ME-PSK enables long reach systems to deliver higher capacities than traditional BPSK.
High-gain Soft-decision Forward Error Correction
Forward error correction has been an integral part of optical transmission for more than a decade, and can dramatically improve the Q for a channel. Initially, FEC systems did all processing after a “hard” decision had been made, meaning each bit was estimated to be 1 or 0 before any signal processing gains were extracted. As processing capacity improved, more sophisticated FEC systems became feasible, and it became possible to extract information from the level of a potential 1 or 0. Intense signal processing on this “soft” estimate of a bit leads to even higher FEC gains. Soft-decision FEC is now the standard for challenging links like undersea systems. Each supplier has an implementation of SD-FEC that makes optimal trade-offs between FEC gain, FEC overhead rates and power.
Flexible Channel Spacing
Another enabling feature for optimizing capacity is finegrained control of optical channel spacing. Traditional systems used fixed channel spacing. Yet to best leverage the spectral efficiency gains of a wide palette of modulation choices, the channel spacing must be set to optimize spectral fill while avoiding excessive inter-channel interaction. Higher capacity may be realized using a higher-order modulation format with slightly increased spacing. For example, using quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) with channel spacing of 40.625 gigahertz (GHz) provides better Q performance than QPSK with 37.5 GHz channel spacing, along with better spectral efficiency than 3 quadrature amplitude modulation (3QAM) with 37.5 GHz, thus providing an intermediate step in the tradeoff of capacity versus reach. By using flexible channel spacing between super-channel carriers, high spectral efficiencies can be achieved, maximizing fiber capacity.
Advanced Coding Techniques
Recently, new data encoding methods have emerged that deliver another step function in increased capacity and reach. By recognizing that some symbols of a QAM constellation suffer
more transmission penalty than others, one can select a symbol subset to optimally match the characteristics of the channel. For example, assume we have two fibers, one with high nonlinearities, and one that is linear. A 64QAM signal may easily pass through the linear fiber. However, for the nonlinear fiber the high-power points at the edge of a 64QAM constellation will suffer more nonlinear penalty than lowerpower points near the center of the constellation. In this case a subset of 64QAM that employs fewer of the high-power symbols in favor of more low-power symbols would be employed. This reduction in the symbol space reduces the penalty from transmission impairments, and at the same time reduces channel capacity since fewer bits can be represented. Optimizing the symbol set to best tradeoff of performance vs. channel capacity while maintaining pre-FEC error rates is the key challenge in these systems. Unlike fixed constellation systems where changing from 8QAM to 16QAM causes large steps in transmission penalty and data rates, the large space of possible code sets enables finegrained control over capacity and error rate in a channel, allowing one to get close to channel data limits while
maintaining optimal FEC input error rates. The result is a new degree of freedom for a system designer that further increases fiber capacity.
No End in Sight
New techniques in the second era of coherent modulation are dramatically improving the capacity-reach product for fiber optic transmission across terrestrial and subsea for both standard and new larger area low loss fiber. Further improvements are being realized by leveraging super-channels in this second coherent era, where sophisticated signal processing at both the transmitter and the receiver offer long-haul and subsea network operators new levels of capacity and reach for their networks. Advanced coherent tools, comprising comprehensive modulation and compensation techniques such as Nyquist subcarriers, SD-FEC gain sharing, ME-PSK, highgain SD-FEC, flexible channel spacing, and advanced coding, are enabling cable owners to achieve previously unheard of capacities on fibers, both new and old. But if past is prologue, the industry will be laying new cables far into the future.
Abhijit Chitambar is Principal Product and Technology Marketing Manager at Infinera, responsible for architecture and technology solutions. Prior to joining Infinera Chitambar worked at Coriant, Tellabs and Lucent Technologies in various engineering management roles including product line management and technology marketing.
Chitambar holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia PA and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of New Hampshire, Durham NH.
Scott Jackson is an accomplished leader in the submarine systems business, and has more than 31 years of experience directing teams from concept to delivery over a broad range of technology areas. In addition, he has successfully delivered large subsystems into multi-billion dollar deployments.
Scott was involved in undersea fiber systems from their genesis, including the first transoceanic optical cable, TAT-8, connecting North America and Europe. In fact, he spoke the first words carried on fiber between continents.
PTC’17
IS SUBSEA TELECOM IN A CHANGING REALITY?
In 2017, more people on the planet will be connected by more subsea telecom capacity than ever before. Subsea telecom - which powers over 90% of global traffic - is in a major build and upgrade cycle worldwide as it responds to burgeoning user demand.
However, in the face of unprecedented opportunity, this relentless expansion is not without major business, technology, operational, financial and regulatory challenges. Moreover, these challenges are highly dynamic.
As the PTC’17 theme notes, it is a time of changing realities for everyone involved as these challenges must be resolved
to continue to expand. Out of the box thinking will be a key requirement.
Learn, network – and solve your challenges
As the first meeting of the subsea community in the calendar, PTC’17 will continue PTC practice to share insights and evaluations of these challenges through its extensive conference program. As the largest annual forum of its kind, the event also provides natural and unrivalled networking opportunities between interests as diverse as subsea suppliers, operators, project holders, investors, contractors as well as special
interest groups, consortia, regulators and policymakers.
Subsea telecom presentations extend throughout the conference program. Related sessions include global capacity and connectivity forecasts from Telegeography, and discussions of emerging applications extending from 5G and content, to cloud and data center initiatives, the Internet of Things, and even tele-health.
Program highlights for subsea telecom attendees:
15 January 2017
Submarine Cable Workshop 1: A Reality Check! (Moderator: Paul McCann, McCann Consulting International)
Get a big picture update of current subsea telecom activity in the key geographic regions of North Atlantic, Latam/ Caribbean, and Pacific/ Oceania. This roundup also features regulatory and SubOptic updates.
Submarine Cable Workshop 2: The Many Keys to Global Network Security (Moderator: Elaine Stafford, The David Ross Group)
Network security is an important and emerging dimension of our business with potentially critical implications in the future. Understand the issues in making subsea technology secure throughout its planning and operational lifecycle from six expert contributors in the field.
Submarine Cable Luncheon: More Capacity? Do We Build or Buy? (Moderator: Ed McCormack, Ciena)
The capability of subsea capacity to respond rapidly to demand remains a clear operational necessity. But in business and financial terms, the potential responses now come in many forms including new ways of partnering and purchasing, as well as the reconfiguring of traditional approaches.
16 January 2017
Topical Session 1: Submarine Cable Developments (Moderator: John Hibbard, Hibbard Consulting)
The topics cover a broad spectrum including funding arrangements for developing countries particularly in the Pacific, the challenges of creating reliable power supplies for cable landing stations, connectivity arrangements across the Caribbean and the trade-off between transmission limits and the options for lowering the cable costs.
17 January 2017
Executive Insight Roundtable 5: Submarine Cable (Moderator: Keith Shaw, Equinix)
Receive emerging business and operational insights in the subsea technology world including subsea network performance issues, the future of “open” networks, hybrid networks, and interconnection in Hawaii.
PTC’17 SUBMARINE CABLE PROGRAM
Sunday, 15 January 2017
09.00–10.30
Submarine Cable Workshop 1: A Reality Check!
Submarine cables carry more than 90% of the world’s telecommunications traffic. As such the planning, design, construction and development of submarine cables is essential to sustain growth of the economy and business around the globe. Cable connectivity needs to be secure; the network needs to be resilient and expansive – both in terms of geographical coverage and capacity to meet demand; and the cable network needs to be dynamic and flexible to meet the changing needs of a burgeoning market.
Many new subsea systems are being constructed. Many of these integrate terrestrial connectivity with undersea networking capability, many are choosing to deploy innovative cable landing station techniques and concepts, and many ensuring that the services offered span at wavelength levels between major traffic centre locations. Capacity upgrades to existing systems are ongoing, with subsea cables delivering
huge capacity wavelength services and providing terabits of capacity to meet demand.
The PTC Subsea Cable sessions offer excellent opportunity for industry organisations and experts to share concepts, ideas and experience together.
Regional Roundup
Review and update submarine cable developments over the last twelve months around the globe. Consider what’s new on the legal and regulatory scene – and get an update on what’s happening in SubOptic!
Moderator:
Paul McCann, Managing Director, McCann Consulting International, Australia
Presenters:
• Wayne Nielsen, Managing Director, WFN Strategies, LLC, USA
• Erick Contag, CEO, Globenet, USA
• Jonathan Kriegel, CEO, NTT DOCOMO Pacific, Guam
• Kent Bressie, Partner & Head of International Practice, Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP, USA
11.00–12.30
Submarine Cable Workshop 2:
The Many Keys to Global Network Security
Security considerations touch every layer of today’s global communications and the imperative of securing undersea networks and the services they provide is more important than ever for network owners and operators. Ensuring secure undersea communications begins during cable planning and continues through construction and the operating life of a cable, touching nearly every element of integrated undersea-backhaul network infrastructure.
We’ve assembled a team of experts who will each share their insights into the keys to managing the many facets of undersea network security.
Moderator:
Elaine Stafford, Managing Partner, The David Ross Group (DRG), USA
Panelists:
• Panagiota Bosdogianni, Technology Director, OTEGLOBE, Greece
• Catherine Creese, Director, US Naval Seafloor Cable Protection Office, USA
• Yali Liu, VP, Global Business Development, ChinaCache International Holdings Ltd, Peoples Rep. of China
• Amy Marks, President & Owner, XSite Modular, USA
• Alice Shelton, Marketing Manager, Technical Area, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, France
12.30–13.30
Submarine Cable Luncheon:
More Capacity? Do We Build or Buy?
Sponsored by: APTelecom, Microsoft Corporation
Want to be entertained whilst having lunch? Ed McCormack, Ciena, will lead a skilled and distinguished panel to discuss –More Capacity? Do we Build or Buy?
The theme is intended to recognize the changing face of the market from the purchaser and supplier perspective, with the ever increasing de-
PTC’17 SUBMARINE CABLE PROGRAM
mand for capacity and connectivity, the changing marketplace and purchasers needs, the increasing number of co-builds & fiber pair purchases, and finally the changing shape of an IRU and the terms and conditions being imposed by purchasers.
Panelists:
• Eric Handa, CEO, APTelecom, USA
• Rajesh Kheny, Program Management, Submarine Cable, faceboook, USA
• Frank Rey, Director, Global Network Acquisition Group, Microsoft, USA
• Michael Rieger, VP, Sales and Business Development, TE SubCom, USA
• Yves Ruggeri, President, SubOptic Executive Committee, SubOptic 2016, and VP, Submarine Systems & Chairman, ACE, Orange, France
Monday, 16 January 2017
14.00–15.15
Topical Session 1:
Submarine Cable Developments
Sponsored by: Emerson Network Power
The Submarine Cable session on Monday has a selection of topical presentations on issues challenging the industry at present. The topics cover a broad spectrum including funding arrangements for developing country, the challenges of creating reliable power supplies for cable landing stations, connectivity arrangements across the Caribbean and the trade-off between transmission limits and the options for lowering the costs of cables. Quite an exciting array of interesting topics for those interested in submarine cables.
Moderator:
John Hibbard, CEO, Hibbard Consulting Pty Ltd, USA
Presenters:
• Tony Frisch, SVP, Repeaters and Branching Unit , Xtera Communications, Inc., USA
• Karthik Kailasam, Director, Integrated Modular Solutions for North America, Emerson Network Power, USA
• Effective Strategies for Launching Cable Landing Stations
• Hugh McGarry, Chief Executive, Garnet Consulting, USA
• Financing and Institutional Models for New Submarine Cable Systems in the Pacific Island
• Grant van Rooyen, President, CEO & Director, Cologix, USA
• Take the CALA Shortcut for Reduced Latency, Cost & Risk: Maximize Cross-Continental Collaboration with Subsea Cable Onramp
folio Solutions, Ciena, Canada
• The Future of Submarine Networks is Open
• Jol Paling, Head, Network Engineering, Aqua Comms, United Kingdom
• Hybrid Submarine and Terrestrial Networks – The Benefits and Challenges
• J. Todd Raymond, CEO, AlohaNAP, USA
• Hawaii As A Critical Interconnection Point
• Dave Welch, President & Co-Founder, Infinera, USA
Tuesday, 17 January 2017
14.00–15.15
Executive Insight Roundtable 5: Submarine Cable
Moderator:
Keith Shaw, VP, Business Development EMEA, Equinix, Netherlands
Presenters:
• Al DiGabriele, SVP, Product Management & Marketing, Hibernia Networks, USA
• Importance of Subsea Network Performance in the Digital Age
• Brian Lavallée, Director, Port-
Thursday, 15 December 2016
Join us at PTC’17 for Register today at ptc.org/ptc 17 Last Opportunity to Save Ends
Keynotes by Industry Leaders
Executive Insight Roundtables Industry Briefings Workshops
Topical Sessions
Social Events for Networking
Awards Ceremony
PTC Pavilion with Exhibitors and Meeting Tables
Hosted Suites by Corporate Partners and more...
Hilton Hawaiian Village® Waikiki Beach Resort
THE STORY
BEHIND THE FIRST RELIABLE
TRANS-ATLANTIC SUBMARINE
CABLE LAID 150 YEARS AGO
BY BRIAN LAVALLÉE
Undersea cable networks deployed around the world carry close to 100 percent of all intercontinental communications traffic, but they’re not a new phenomenon by any means. In fact, this week is the 150-year anniversary of the first reliable trans-Atlantic telegraph cable that was put into service way back in 1866. You’re not hallucinating; it was indeed a century and a half ago!
The 1866 submarine cable snaked along the Atlantic Ocean seabed to connect Telegraph Field at Foilhommerum Bay on Valentia Island (Ireland) to Heart’s Content in Newfoundland (now part of Canada). The 1866 cable wasn’t actually the first trans-Atlantic submarine cable though; it was the fourth attempt, though the first which was successful, after multiple failed attempts in 1857, 1858, and 1865. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again –and they did.
The first message successfully sent across a trans-Atlantic cable occurred on August 16, 1858 and ushered in an era of drastically reduced communication times. Before submarine telegraph cables, the speed of trans-Atlantic communication was the speed of the fastest ship that carried a handwritten message between North America and Europe, which took about a week and of-
ten much longer due to the notoriously bad weather and rough seas of the North Atlantic. The 1858 trans-Atlantic telegraph cable allowed for (short) messages and responses to be received in the same day – 19th century instant messaging. Although modern submarine cables dwarf the transmission performance of the first submarine telegraph cables, the latter was still an impressive feat nonetheless and laid the foundation for mankind’s biggest engineering feat ever – the global Internet.
19th Century Telecommunication Visionaries
Over 150 years ago, several visionaries dreamt of telegraph cables connecting the New World to the Old World across the vast
expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
As Steve Jobs once said, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do,” and this was also the case back in the 1850s – dream big or go home!
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was the muscle behind the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, which began in 1854 and was completed a few years later in 1858.
Unfortunately, the cable worked for just three weeks before catastrophically failing, but was an impressive feat that provided invaluable experience, knowledge, anger, pain, and sorrow, all of which were leveraged in the next cable attempt.
Before the premature death of the 1858 cable, it did send the
first telegram across the Atlantic Ocean on August 16 stating “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will to all men.” Queen Victoria later sent a message to American President James Buchanan stating “an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem” to which Buchanan responded, “it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the
world.” They weren’t exactly the typical “Yo! Wazzup!?!” text messages of today, but they were precursors to today’s long distance social media messages. It should be noted these transmitted telegrams were very hard to decipher. For instance, a 98word message sent from Queen Victoria took sixteen hours to send. This speed would be simply incompatible with today’s neurotic need to communicate instantly (or faster), but 150 years ago it was “near instant” when compared to waiting for a ship to arrive with your handwritten message, and then you had to send your response back!
As (very bad) luck would have it, signal quality on the new 1858 cable started to quickly degrade resulting in a transmission speed that rendered the new submarine cable essentially unusable. In an attempt to speed up the transmission performance, the cable’s chief electrician, Wildman Whitehouse, applied thousands of volts to the cable causing its insulation to fail, and the submarine cable was destroyed. How would you like to be in his shoes back then? This was likely the very first miserable day in the life of a submarine network engineer, or in case of Whitehouse, a self-taught electrician. The incident led to an 1861 public enquiry, which eventually concluded that Whitehouse bear
majority responsibility for the untimely death of the 1858 submarine cable, although it’s also been argued that the manufacturing, storage, and handling of the 1858 submarine cable would have led to a premature failure anyway. Regardless, it must have been a miserable day for Wildman!
To put this failure into perspective, today’s submarine cables are typically designed for a 25year lifespan, yet the lifespan of the first trans-Atlantic cable was just three weeks! The failure significantly undermined public and investor confidence, which delayed efforts to restore the trans-Atlantic telegraph link. However, the benefits of the short lifespan of the first trans-Atlantic cable proved too great to ignore, so a second attempt was undertaken in 1865 with an improved cable design, and after a few more setbacks and failed attempts, a reliable undersea trans-Atlantic cable was successfully completed and put into service on July 28, 1866.
Successful entrepreneurs never quit, as evidenced by the multiple attempts over a nine-year period from 1857 to 1866, which culminated in finally achieving a reliable trans-Atlantic cable that ushered in the era of transoceanic communications. The success of the 1866 cable led to several more cables being laid between
Foilhommerum Bay and Heart’s
Content from 1873 to 1894. By the end of the 19th century, trans-Atlantic cables owned by Britain, France, Germany, and the United States were in operation, resulting in what was essentially a “web” of submarine telegraph cables, which can perhaps be thought of as an early “Internet” based on Morse code.
19th Century Submarine Cables Designs
The first trans-Atlantic cables were made from materials available at the time. Multiple copper wires were covered with natural latex from the sap of the gutta-percha tree and then wound with tarred hemp. Messages were sent and received by Morse code operators at each end of the cable – the human “smartphone” of the time. These cables didn’t incorporate repeaters to amplify transmitted signals along the cable because there simply wasn’t a practical way to power the submerged relays. Early submarine telegraph cables were basically very long passive patch cables laid upon the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Still, it was impressive for the time.
The first repeatered trans-Atlantic cable was TAT-1 deployed nearly a century later in 1956, which used such newfangled technologies as coaxial cable, polyethylene insulation instead
of gutta-percha tree sap, reliable vacuum tubes in submerged repeaters instead of newly introduced (and untrusted) transistors, as well as other engineering improvements in the 1950s. TAT-1 was a submerged fossil by today’s standards, but an absolutely critical step to where we are today. What will future generations think of the submarine cables that we’re so proud and fond of today? Will today’s cables be viewed in the future the same way we view 8-track cassettes today?
“The first message sent across the 1858 cable took over 17 hours to send, a messaging speed that would render today’s texting teenager catatonic.”
Transmission speed of the 1858 cable was very slow, taking around two minutes to transmit a single character, which translates into a transmission rate of about 0.1 word/minute! The first message sent across the 1858 cable took over 17 hours to send, a messaging speed that would render today’s texting teenager catatonic. The more advanced
1866 cable used improved cable manufacturing methods and transmission technologies that increased transmission speeds to a whopping 8 words/minute, or 80 times faster than the 1858 cable. And even though transmission speed increased to only 120 words/minute by the 20th century, it enabled London to become a global telecommunications hub, and is why they’re still a primary location for landing modern submarine cables that have fuelled their data center industry. Internet Content Providers (ICP) currently drive most submarine network bandwidth growth that’s used
to interconnect their many data centers. Where ICPs don’t or can’t purchase wholesale bandwidth, they’ve already built or will build their own submarine cables.
Unbeknownst to the early submarine cable visionaries back in the 1850s, they were laying the foundation that would eventually lead to today’s submarine cables becoming jugular veins of intercontinental communications. Submarine cables play a critical role in enabling the global Internet, which has unleashed significant and rapid social, economic, and political
change around the world. Who knows where this near instant and borderless communications medium will take our species in the future, both good and not so good? Sit back and think about it for a minute… for the first time in the history of mankind, any human can communicate with any other human on planet Earth, at any time. If that isn’t an impressive engineering feat, I simply don’t know what is.
So, How Far Have We Actually Come?
The 1858 telegraph cable transmitted messages across the Atlantic Ocean at roughly 0.1
word/minute using the venerable Morse code. Today’s submarine cables transmit multiple terabits of data each and every second. For example, look at the Aqua Comms AEConnect submarine cable, which recently came online. This 5,522km cable connects Killala (Ireland) to Shirley (New York, US) and is capable of delivering more than 52Tbps! Let’s put this into perspective; if we assume the average English word length is 5 characters, each represented by an 8-bit ASCII code, 0.1 word/ minute translates into approximately 0.067bps… my thimble runneth over. The Aqua Comms AEConnect submarine cable carries 779,999,961,000,002 times more information each and every second than the 1858 cable of 150 years ago. Granted, these calculations are rough estimates but they do illustrate the several orders of magnitude increases in transmission speed over the last century and a half.
To commemorate the first trans-Atlantic messages between Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan, a memorial monument exists at Telegraph Field on Valentia Island on Foilhommerum Cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean that honors the history of the local telegraph industry from 1857 onwards. To celebrate the 150-year anniversary, a festival will be held from
Telegraph Field Commemorative Monument on Valentia Island, Ireland
July 14 to 17 on Valentia Island with the official festival opening to take place at the monument on Wednesday, July 13. This will be followed by fun and educational activities for the entire family, as detailed in the festival program. If you’re able to attend, I highly
recommend participating in this unique festival to help celebrate the glorious history of the first trans-Atlantic submarine cables that were in essence the foundation of submarine networks that enable today’s global Internet. You can even send a bunch
of selfies from the event back to North America along the same trans-Atlantic corridor!
Over the past 150 years, we have indeed come a long way, baby!
Grappling hook used for lifting the cable
Brian Lavallée is Director of Portfolio Solutions Marketing for Ciena’s packet and submarine networking solutions.
Telecoms consulting of submarine cable systems for regional and trans-oceanic applications
NEGOTIATING EFFECTIVE SUBMARINE CAPACITY USE AGREEMENTS
BY JAMES HALLIDAY
The expanding global demand for data is driving an upswing in the submarine cable industry. To deploy a subsea cable system is a complex and challenging project, requiring a multidisciplinary approach. The marine environment is hazardous, construction is expensive and lengthy and there are considerable permitting and sovereign risk issues.
One specific challenge I see is in negotiating customer use agreements (CUAs). Whereas once systems were laid by carrier clubs for their mutual benefit, now investments are commonly made by private equity for commercial return (sometimes they are also funded by World Bank or similar organisations).
As a result, frequently financiers to cable owners will often (1) look to see relatively rapid and short term returns; and (2) as part of this, often insist on pre-contract in force (CIF) binding commitments from key customers as a pre-condition to funding. Long gone are the days when systems were deployed in the hope that ‘if we build it, they will come’.
companies. These entities commonly now require flexible but guaranteed access to bandwidth on demand. In many cases it is cheaper and easier to acquire dedicated capacity on systems directly, rather than leasing service capacity from the carriers.
Too often though, CUA negotiations struggle for extended periods over basic commercial differences. Most of these differences are regarding risk management; who bears the project risk(s) and what is their contractual liability if the risk is realised. In this article I explain from the commercial perspective some of the common areas of commercial tension and offer some suggestions to navigate around them to a successful deal.
Background
The contracting context is important. A carrier-carrier (club) cable arrangement has a totally different risk profile to a carrier/ non-carrier (e.g. OTT) negotiation. Similarly, a system funded by the World Bank has a different feel to one funded by private equity. There are also considerable differences between CUAs that are negotiated before the system is ready for service (RFS) and those signed afterwards (for example, post-RFS CUAs are typically unconditional).
However, allowing for these differences, nearly all submarine customer contracts share certain common characteristics. For example, the cable owner will
agree to supply a transmission service along a specified route for an agreed price, term, service levels and other agreed basic commercial parameters.
More CUAs are long term, somewhere between 15-20 years and sometimes with an option to extend. Contrast this with the economic life of the cable system which can often be longer than this (up to 25 years). Historically systems have become commercially obsolete before this time as cables are replaced by better fibre optic technology. However in recent times this trend may be changing as some older systems have been recently upgraded in bandwidth using new technology, effectively extending their useful life.
The demand side is also changing. Increasingly customers are drawn from the content and OTT industries, rather than traditional communications
Such contracts can be for the supply of ‘dark fibre’ (no electronics) or, more commonly, ‘lit fibre’. Pre-CIF contracts will commonly contain a ‘condition precedent’, that says the owner’s obligation to supply the service is subject to finance, board approval or some other commercial discretion. In practice, the cable owner will often sub-contract the obligation to build the cable to a third party which specialises in submarine cable construction. (In this article I refer to that third party as the “supplier”.)
Typically the customer is usually asked to pay the contract fee upfront, either immediately on the ready for service (RFS) date or shortly afterwards. The economic risk and benefit of the system passes to the customer on RFS, including the obligation to maintain the cable. In practice, the customer usually contracts the operations and maintenance (O&M) obligations back to the owner. In turn, the owner will often sub-contract this obligation to a third partythis can be the supplier or, often, another third party.
The O&M contact will sometimes (depending on the age of the system) contain a service credit regime, by which the cable owner agrees to credit against the customer’s O&M charges a fixed, time based, amount for service interruption. However,
for some older systems, no service assurance is given.
In some cases the form of the CUA is affected by the need to treat it as an indefeasible right of use (IRU) for tax and accounting purposes. IRUs are, broadly, treated as capital assets and depreciable as such. While the precise definition of an IRU is outside the scope of this article, adopting an IRU structure places certain restrictions on what the parties can agree in the contract.
Ignoring these special cases for now, below is a simple diagram summarising some of the key stages in the life of a pre-CIF CUA between the cable owner and a non-carrier customer.
Pre-CIF Period
The first part of the contract life cycle is the pre-CIF period. Commonly the owner is not committed to provide the service at this stage, because the contract is conditional upon the satisfaction of one or more conditions precedent. During this period, the owner has to negotiate or finalise many complex and interdependent arrangements, including:
• finance, either with its shareholders (equity) or a financier (debt);
INTERNATIONAL CABLE PROTECTION COMMITTEE PRESENTS OUR 50th PLENARY, 25 – 27 APRIL 2017, MONTEVIDEO Unmissable Insights and Challenges in Submarine Cable Planning, I ation, Protection and Maintenance.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Email: secretariat@iscpc.org. Website: www.iscpc.org General Manager: Mr. Keith Schofield
The ICPC is a non-commercial, non-profit international community of interest comprising more than 150 Member organisations from over 60 countries who are active in the critical activities of regulating, operating, building, securing and maintaining submarine cable infrastructure. ICPC Members take care of over 97% of the world’s submarine telecommunications cable infrastructure, and an increasing number of international submarine power cables. The ICPC’s mission and vision is to be the international submarine cable authority providing leadership and guidance on issues concerning submarine cable implementation, protection and reliability.
The ICPC Plenary will be held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Montevideo, Uruguay, from 25 - 27th April 2017, hosted by Telxius. Attendance at the ICPC Plenary provides significant benefits for members, presenters and exhibitors.
The theme for the ICPC’s 50th Plenary is Unmissable insights and challenges in submarine cable planning, installation, protection and maintenance. The ICPC now seeks presentation abstracts that address this broad theme. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to the following.
Topic 1: Challenges to improving submarine cable reliability
Balancing the pressure to cut the cost of capacity yet deliver still more reliable connectivity.
Technical and commercial innovations that can benefit the cable industry and its customers. Methods to reduce system repair times and minimise service disruption.
Topic 2: Cable protection and the power of partnerships
Collaboration across sectors to deliver better protection for cables.
Where they are permitted, how can partnerships benefit cable protection and maintenance?
Synergies between the telecommunications and power cable sectors in the drive for increased cable system reliability.
Topic 3: Cable protection in the wider environment
Socio-economic benefits of cables.
Environmental responsibilities and how to meet them.
Challenges to the UNCLOS freedoms to lay, operate and maintain cables in international waters
Challenges of cable planning, installation and maintenance in hostile environments
The ICPC Plenary attracts global attendance and provides valuable opportunities to exchange ideas on the planning, installation, operation and maintenance of cables across sectors in the submarine cable community, to learn from colleagues facing similar challenges, and to get up to date with environmental and legal matters pertaining to submarine cables.
The agenda includes briefing sessions, networking, presentations, exhibitors, round tables and keynote interviews, ensuring that there is significant value for all who attend.
Registration to attend the ICPC Plenary is complimentary for up to two representatives from each member organisation and for the presenters of all accepted papers A number of leading contributors will also participate in interactive panel discussions covering key issues raised in the presentations.
Abstracts and Presentations
a) Abstracts must be submitted via email to secretariat@iscpc.org no later than 9th December 2016.
b) Presentations should be a maximum of 25 minutes long, including approximately 5 minutes for questions and answers, and formatted in accordance with the guidelines that will be provided.
Important Dates
9 December 2016: Cut-off date for abstract submission
13 January 2017: Decision notification to presenters
c) The ICPC will evaluate all submissions based on content, relevance and quality.
d) Overt marketing presentations will not be accepted. One slide stating the presenter’s affiliation and its activities can be included at the beginning or end of the presentation.
20 January 2017: Publication of Open Session Agenda
7 April 2017: Presentation files to be received by ICPC
The ICPC gratefully acknowledges as its Host for the 2017 Plenary.
• an agreement with the supplier to build and lay the cable system; and
• permitting.
Project financiers are interested in the ‘bankability’ of the project and particularly the customer contracts. Financiers will commonly want to review CUA terms to work out what they are worth and any conditions to payment. A debt financier will normally also look to take security over the contract. Specifically, most will require the cable owner (often a special purpose vehicle or SPV) to give control of its assets to the financier if there is a default under the financing arrangements. This includes taking ownership of CUAs, which are an important asset of the cable owner. Hence a ‘financier friendly’ CUA would allow disclosure and assignment (transfer) of the CUA to the security holder if the security is enforced.
Sub-contractors (i.e the supplier of the system and other construction partners) typically look to minimise risk and financial exposure in their contracts, particularly around common issues such as late delivery of the system, force majeure and so on. Where a construction partner will accept financial penalties for late delivery at all (this is not always done), this is usually capped/limited to
a dollar amount that is low relative to the overall project value. It is critical for the cable owner to properly identify and ‘back to back’ this liability regime in its CUAs, to ensure it is not left holding the gap risk between what a supplier and customer will respectively accept. In practice this means the cable system supply contract with the supplier is often negotiated concurrently or even before the CUA.
Permitting: by their nature, cable projects are ‘regulatory heavy’. There is usually a considerable time and cost investment required of a cable owner to sort out permitting, including:
• landing permits and carrier licensing: Invariably, government permits are required to land the system or to pass through territorial waters. There are profes-
sional firms that specialise in obtaining these. In some cases a carrier licence will also be required to bring cable on shore, although this is not always the case where the system simply interconnects to another cable (for example in the landing station) and is not directly connected to local customers.
• Landing Party Agreements:
For some countries it is relatively simple to obtain the necessary licences and permissions. In others it is more difficult and sometimes foreign companies are forbidden from doing so. In these cases it’s necessary to negotiate a landing party agreement with a local carrier. As well charging to provide landing station facilities and permitting support, the landing party (carrier) may also request
or be invited to participate in the consortium or obtain capacity on the system.
• Crossing agreements: Operators of oil and gas pipelines and other telecommunications cables require “crossing agreements” with new cable operators to manage the risk and practical aspects of the crossing, before the cable is laid. These are specialised arrangements which are partly regulated by international committees and convention, but in my experience there is often considerable individual variation between what existing pipeline and cable operators will accept.
Usually the customer will say in the CUA that the cable owner should bear the risk and cost of obtaining these permits. Permitting responsibility then becomes a commercial discussion between the cable owner and the supplier in the construction sub-contract (in practice, responsibility for permitting is often shared between them).
Permitting is a key commercial variable in CUAs, as the availability of permits is closely linked to the calculation of the target RFS date in the CUA; for this reason it’s worth noting that obtaining these permits can take considerable time.
Build Phase
Once these conditions are satisfied, the contract becomes unconditional. Normally at this point the physical activities necessary to actually construct the cable begin (marine survey; cable build; landing station fitout; cable lay). Once a CUA becomes CIF, some of the key business risks include the following:
(1) the project could encounter delays, usually for operational reasons (e.g. delay in cable construction, weather); or
(2) the project could fail altogether for a variety of reasons.
In such cases the customer, if unsecured, is left essentially powerless because its only right is to sue the cable owner for damages. Where the cable owner is a special purpose vehicle (SPV), this right is not particularly valuable because the owner typically has few assets to meet a judgment. Those assets it does have are normally secured in favour of the project debt financier (see above).
For this reason, anchor customers may sometimes look to take security from the cable owner including legal security (such as a mortgage or charge over the
cable owner and its assets) and ‘step-in’ rights. In this case, the customer has the right to step into the shoes of the cable owner and take control of the project.
This can include assuming the cable owner’s rights under the sub-contract with the supplier. In this case, the customer effectively becomes the senior secured creditor on an interim basis. This right can obviously only be granted to one customer and requires priority arrangements to be negotiated with project debt financiers.
Acceptance testing
Assuming all goes well during the build phase, the next step is usually for the cable owner to present the system as ‘ready for service’ and acceptance testing
begins. Because cable systems are often now laid ‘live’, this process typically takes only a few weeks. The contract needs to clearly set out the acceptance process and criteria, as well as a dispute resolution process (such as expert determination) for disagreements between customer and cable owner.
After the service goes live
Even once the service is accepted into operation, there are many things which can go wrong. The parties’ next challenge is to document how the service will be maintained; service levels; any remedies (such as service credits) following service interruption or cable break; and risk apportionment more generally such as property damage and so on. Most of these concepts are
familiar to telecommunications executives, so I won’t cover them in detail here. However, it is worth highlighting some issues unique to submarine systems:
• Force majeure: Cable owners are generally reluctant to accept legal risk for service interruption beyond a defined, pre-determined amount (usually a service credit or rebate against the ongoing O&M fees). Also, well-advised cable owners will always try to include an ‘excusable outage’ or ‘force majeure’ clause into the CUA. The force majeure (FM) clause legally excuses the cable owner from performance (or payment of service credit) if certain defined events occur. These are usually events outside the control of the cable owner. However, because most of the problems which occur are in fact beyond the control of the cable owner (e.g. cable cuts), there is often argument about who is legally responsible for these events. Hence it’s critical to think carefully about who should bear the risk for common risk scenarios such government intervention / sovereign risk (often a shared risk); cable cuts (usually but not always the cable owner’s responsibility
to repair); and sub-contractor risk (usually with the cable owner). As far as possible, specific scenarios should be identified and mapped out in the contract.
• Upgrades of the system: at periodic intervals during the life of the system it may ‘fill up’ and customers may ask for the system electronics to be upgraded. Obviously there is a considerable oneoff capital cost in doing so which may make it uneconomic, depending on the level of customer demand for the upgraded service.
These days, well-advised customers will sometimes ask for a right to contribute to the capital costs of the upgrade in return for a proportionate share of the capacity; or sometimes even take an option to require the cable owner to upgrade the system (forced upgrade) in certain circumstances.
• Downgrade of capacity: conversely (though not very often), customers may seek the right to ‘dial down’ or ‘downgrade the amount of capacity they acquire. This usually involves the pay-
ment of some kind of cancellation or break fee to the cable owner.
• Termination: of course the contract also needs to deal with exit, although in a long term CUA the general principle is this can only occur in extreme circumstances. The common events of default in such agreements include insolvency; default (failure to pay or extended service interruption); or in some cases, change of control. “Change in control” occurs where either the customer or cable owner is taken over by a
new owner after the CUA is signed. This can often allow the other party to terminate in defined circumstances; for example, if the acquirer is a competitor to the other party or isn’t creditworthy enough to support the contract. Note that, as mentioned above, project financiers will often also look for clauses that allow them to enforce their security and take control of the cable owner. This will sometimes be an exception to the ‘change control’ principle. That is, the cable owner may ask for upfront permission to transfer the contract to a financier if the security agreement is enforced.
Resale of the service
In return for taking on the risk of being an anchor tenant, the customer will often demand and receive favourable pricing terms. In fact, sometimes customers will negotiate price protection arrangements meaning they will always receive the benefit of the best pricing offered by the cable owner, including the cable owner’s other customers.
However, once the system is built and operational, the cable owner will want to sell capacity (usually at a higher price) to others. Hence the cable owner should consider whether any
restrictions on resale by the customer are appropriate, to prevent the customer later ‘dumping’ unwanted capacity into the cable owner’s market and depressing the market price.
Extension
Finally, as mentioned the economic life of a system will often be longer than the contractual life. For this reason, customers may seek a right to extend the service term. Commonly there is no additional capital cost for extension, although there will often need to be a renegotiation of service levels and/or O&M charges.
Conclusions
Dispute resolution
Of course, disputes can arise from time to time and such disputes are typically resolved in CUAs through private arbitration, rather than the court system. The pros and cons of different arbitral models are beyond the scope of this article but again, legal advice should be taken to ensure a fair outcome is achieved.
Such resale restrictions can be expressed in different ways and parties should always take legal advice regarding them. This is because in some places such restrictions are unenforceable as an illegal restraint of trade or, even worse, create civil or criminal liability for the cable owner and customer or their personnel.
In summary, writing a successful CUA requires a holistic approach to risk management and apportionment. It also requires retaining the right advisors, who has a strong grasp and experience of the unique risks and drivers in the industry. Both cable owners and customers can avoid much wasted time, effort and expense through understanding and balancing these risks as a whole. Developing a common risk profile is vital to the successful negotiation of the CUA.
James Halliday is a partner in the Sydney office of the international law firm, Baker & McKenzie. Baker & McKenzie has offices in 47 countries and has been ranked #1 for cross-border deals for six years (Thomson Reuters). James has practised telecommunications law for over twenty years and negotiated many wholesale submarine and terrestrial cable agreements for clients, including CUAs, joint venture/consortium documentation, construction and maintenance agreements and related finance and guarantee documentation.
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BACK REFLECTION
BY JOSÉ CHESNOY
RETROSPECTIVE OF SUBMARINE UPGRADES
This short paper shows how the submarine optical cable systems evolved in the last 25 years, from closely linked transmission terminal and wet plant, to an open market where WDM submarine terminals upgrades have become progressively an independent competitive battle field linking terrestrial and submarine network backbones. In addition, after the tremendous progress of their ultimate upgrade capacity, we will show how old submarine optical cables stay competitive versus new built.
History of upgrades spread over less than 25 years, but deserve a “Back Reflection” chapter in this Subtelforum magazine issue.
The old Age of submarine terminals
Traditionally, the transmission terminal was an intrinsic part of the whole cable system. Wet plant and terminal were supplied both together at
installation. At the time of coaxial technology, it could happen that big cable suppliers purchased their submarine terminal to an external company to minimize their development and production costs, without fearing a breach in their market. It has been the case for the last AT&T coaxial systems SG where terminals have been developed by the French CGE (AlcatelCIT). The notion of upgrade of terminals was not existing since terminal were supplied jointly with the cable. There has been very rare anecdotic cases of coaxial cables where the submarine terminal was removed and replaced by a new one having more analog voice channels (Reference 1).
When the first optical cables were developed in years 1980 (see Chesnoy in Subtel Forum magazine STF-89), the technology was developed in close cooperation between each large national suppliers in a narrow “club”, AT&T organizing the European S280 development with TAT-8 target,
and the Japanese development with TPC-3 target. Each supplier was designing and producing the same submarine terminal.
With this first generations of regenerated optical fiber systems, the terminal was again installed at the time of the cable lay and no upgrade could be considered. The terminal was not perceived as strategic for the submarine telecom cable business as illustrated by the supply of the S560 (560 Mbit/s) French Alcatel-CIT terminal by AT&T for all their S560 systems. But optical amplified systems changed the game.
Optically amplified systems
In years 1990, the first optically amplified cables, based on Erbium doped fiber (EDFA), were developed once again and for the last time in close cooperation (“coopetition”) between AT&TSSI, Alcatel Submarcom and STC for TAT-12/ TAT-13 respectively with AT&T, France Telecom and BT, and AT&T-SSI and KDD for TPC-5 with AT&T and KDDI. But all the suppliers were definitely keen to develop and produce
their own full system and to propose it as a turnkey offer.
What changed with optical amplification is that EDFA brought the end-to-end transparency of the cable to any optical signal, and thus opened the field to WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing). The improvement of terminal and amplifier technology permitted then to offer new cables having a WDM potential of ever increasing number of wavelengths. Cable systems were installed at day one with 1 wavelength and the extra waves were supplied later on the same terminal. This was the first definition of upgrade: addition of wavelengths inside the original terminal as designed, completing smoothly the design capacity. Huge stations were dimensioned in years 2000 for the full design capacity using the original technology.
With WDM
The terminal became strategic for cable suppliers
There was two main reasons:
• first the WDM terminal contemplated market was enormous, based on the cost of the technology at that time
• And secondly the capacity upgrade was expected to spread regularly over time, damping the cyclic market of new cables.
The key suppliers of the “club” developed their system offer in a very harsh competition against each other and promoted their submarine cable system as a closed turnkey offer. They continued to share the delivery of large cables in order to shorten the delivery times and to smooth their market, but the sharing was based on the supply of separate segments of the large systems, without split between dry and wet plants.
With 10 Gbps WDM in year 2000, following the initial 2.5Gbit/s WDM, a new idea came that the upgrade of an installed cable could be done with more capacity that the original design capacity. The ultimate upgrade capacity, was soon exceeding significantly the design capacity for a given cable. This provided a new dimension to the terminal upgrade, still provided by the original cable supplier.
Breaking the game: SMW3 case
The idea to install on a cable a terminal from a different company than the cable supplier was not obvious. The rampart was brought down by the “club” of system suppliers itself. The case that provided an occasion to break the barriers was Sea-MeWe-3 as explained in Reference 3. It had been manufactured by 4 suppliers sharing the ten
submarine segments of the System. Initial design capacity was 8 x 2.5 Gbps per fiber pair, with 4 x 2.5Gbit/s equipped initially.
The completion of the system took place in 1999. It was followed up very quickly by a 2.5G upgrade up to the original design capacity. The owners identified very quickly that the system margins were high and investigation on 10G capability was initiated as soon as 1999, followed by a first 10G upgrade started in 2001 and completed in 2003, which confirmed that the ultimate capacity was far in excess of the original design capacity at 2.5G. This first 10G upgrade was undertaken by each original segment supplier as illustrated in the table below.
The second 10G upgrade initiated in 2004 and installed in 2005 was the first case in submarine cable history where the cable suppliers were invited to tender for the upgrade of wet segments initially built by their competitors. As a result of the tender process, competitor “F” was selected to install their terminal on two wet segments designed and equipped originally by competitor “A” and on one wet segment initially deployed by competitor “K”. The overall process proved very successful technically and economically
and the competition game was brought over for each further upgrade: terminal and cable were no longer considered as linked together to their original supplier.
The route was thus open to upgrade cables by not originally planned (“alien”) terminals, and all fibers of new cables were then equipped with optical couplers to permit the addition of an alien terminal without traffic interruption.
New comers providing only terminals took opportunity of this new trend and started then to compete to introduce their own equipment. They needed the know-how of specific submarine design in particular to understand long haul optical transmission. The first new comer was Nortel, which had part of its staff having experience in the submarine business. Ciena and Infinera followed, reinforcing their team through recruiting staff from Nortel after its bankruptcy. Azea (later absorbed by Xtera) was created basing its business model on alien upgrade of existing cables.
Market attraction of upgrades
The market of submarine upgrades looked very attractive. From extrapolations done in years 2000, the market of submarine terminal was
Cost per Bit Dropped by a Factor of 2 per Year
During 20 Years
Quantity (<15% per year)
Technology (silicon + optical)
Source: Peter Winzer ECOC 2016
expected to exceed the market of wet plant for the new WDM cables! This proved to be wrong due to continuous cost reduction of WDM technology.
Figure 2 illustrates schematically the two factors of sustained WDM cost reduction. The increase of quantities explains less than 15% drop per year. The main contribution is coming from the progress of technologies, shared between silicon integration and optical technology. After the evolution from 2.5Gbit/s channels to 10Gbit/s WDM, a dramatic progress took place with the advent of Coherent technology. The result is that capacities of existing cable have been multiplies by 10, but also that the cost of a full capacity terminal equipment stay quietly
in the range of 10% of the value of the wet plant.
Coherent technologies
10 Gbps transponders, being direct detection systems, needed extremely precise Chromatic Dispersion (CD) adjustment, combined in a clever way between transmitter and receiver, and different for all wavelengths on systems longer than about 2000 km. This needed to have specific competence and a supply chain for CD devices. This CD compensation was not needed for WDM terrestrial systems, and thus not straightforward for companies deploying metro or long haul terrestrial networks. 10 Gbps transponders used in submarine systems were also somewhat
Toward the End of the Upgrade Capacity Dream
UPGRADE CAPACITY
DESIGN CAPACITY
specific Return to Zero (RZ) formats or even DPSK format, while simple Non Return to Zero (NRZ) was sufficient for terrestrial systems.
Coherent technologies equalized the competitive game. The chromatic dispersion adjustment became electronic, done by a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) for 40Gbit/s and later 100Gbit/s coherent transmission. In 2010, when coherent technologies were made globally available, all the deployed submarine optical cables were dispersion compensated and became upgradable by the terrestrial coherent technologies. The new submarine cables optimized from 2012 for 100 Gbps coherent technologies deployed large “normal” dispersion fibers, and the DSP evolved to
Source: José Chesnoy 2015 (Ref. below)
be able to include this larger CD compensation.
With Coherent technology, the capacity offered by cables designed in years 2000 were multiplied by 10 versus their original design capacity. This is illustrated in Figure 3 for systems 6500 km long (transatlantic), where the dots are real cables.
It became like a dream that a cable built 10 years before could offer a capacity 10 times larger than the one defining its capital value. One can see with this figure that the gap between the design capacity of the cable and the ultimate capacity offered, is naturally vanishing for more recent cables that have been designed considering an up to date WDM terminal.
To take a practical example in this figure 3, the cable designed in 2000, in service in 2002 is Apollo, providing a design capacity of 80 x 10 Gbps per fiber. A field trial demonstrated 8 Tbps per fiber on this cable (press release by Alcatel-Lucent - July 2015). The gap between design capacity and ultimate upgrade capacity was not discovered suddenly, but appeared progressively following terminal technology improvement (see Figure 4 from Telegeography again for Apollo).
The consequence is that, unlike previous generations of cables, the old cables of the amplification generation are still competitive against the new generation.
Coherent technology was initially promoted by terrestrial WDM suppliers. The two leading companies for coherent technologies were Nortel and Lucent. Naturally the first terrestrial WDM suppliers that proposed submarine upgrades with coherent technologies at 40Gbit/s were Ciena and Infinera who had acquired Nortel know-how. Lucent’s merge with Alcatel permitted also Alcatel-Lucent to keep the lead.
Then 100Gbit/s DSP became generally available from specialized component companies such as Acacia, Clariphy or NEL, in addition to in-house development by system suppliers (see Figure 5).
Most terrestrial WDM suppliers compete now on upgrades of submarine cables, promoting their technology and sometimes also their faster deployment inherited from terrestrial systems. They also promote their ability to integrate the terrestrial backhaul.
The original cable suppliers keep some key advantage against these new competitors: they have a deep knowledge of ultra-long haul transmission, they know well their cable and they have the experience of large scale deployment between many counties. Overall they handle properly the supervisory of the wet plant asset. The purchasers let usually install their first terminal by the cable supplier, but many of them introduce a
second supplier for upgrade, in order to maintain a double sourcing policy.
What next ?
Since the last two years, the trend to separate the wet plant from the terminal is proceeding through the concept of Open Cable. The idea is to purchase the submarine cable first, and to supply the terminal separately later, that is “upgrade zero”. Is this simple but risky idea the ultimate operational milestone for upgrades?
A main short term issue from upgrades may be that the experience of the last 15 years may be harshly misleading:
• The fist misleading lesson is that the drop of WDM
Coherent DSP Becoming Generally Available
Source: Peter Winzer
cost will continue to absorb the increase of capacity demand. An extensive analysis presented in last ECOC conference illustrates (Figure 6) that transmission cost will start to increase faster than capacity demand.
• A second extrapolation of past experience that could be misleading is that the capacity of laid cables will continue to benefit from an ever increasing ultimate capacity accessible to upgrades. It is no longer true for all cables designed today with coherent technology in perspective, as displayed above (in Figure 3).
• The last consequence of this recent history is that cables
designed in years 2000, staying competitive in term of upgrade capacity, will not be dismantled when approaching their 25 years design life (see dedicated SubOptic 2016 workshop, Reference 4). The wet plant reliability will have the final word.
General references :
1- Du Morse à l’Internet, R.Salvador, G.Fouchard, Y.Rolland, A.P.Leclerc, Edition Association des Amis des Câbles Sous Marins, 2006 (book)
2- Undersea Fiber Communication Systems, Ed.2, José Chesnoy ed., Elsevier/Academic Press ISBN: 978-0-12804269-4 (book)
3- J.B. Thomine, Tightrope Walking, Or How Sea-MeWe 3 Was Upgraded To 10 Gbps and Keeps Being Upgraded, SubOptic 2013, Paris, http://www.suboptic.org
4- Round table “Extending the lifetime of submarine systems”, SubOptic 2016, Dubai, http://www.suboptic.org
José Chesnoy (jose.chesnoy@ free.fr), PhD, is an independent expert in the field of submarine cable technology. After Ecole Polytechnique and a first a 10 years academic career in the French CNRS, he joined Alcatel’s research organization in 1989, leading the advent of amplified submarine cables in the company. After several positions in R&D and sales, he became CTO of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks until the end of 2014.
He was member of several Suboptic Program Committees, then chaired the program committee for SubOptic 2004, and was nominated Bell Labs Fellow in 2010.
José Chesnoy is the editor of the reference book “Undersea Fiber Communication Systems” (Elsevier/ Academic Press) having a new revised edition just published end 2015. Transmission will Become a Bigger Cost Factor
Undersea Fiber Communication Systems
Undersea Fiber Communication Systems, 2e
Chesnoy Independent submarine Telecom Expert, former CTO of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks
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This comprehensive book provides both a high-level overview and the detailed specialist technical data for design, installation, aspects of this field
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A LETTER ON THE NEXT 15 YEARS
BY KRISTIAN NIELSEN
To our loyal readers,
Over the last 15 years SubTel Forum has grown in ways that we could never have predicted. Fifteen years ago, we offered seven publications annually: the bi-monthly Magazine, and the annual Industry Calendar. Today, we produce almost 20 publications over the course of the year, not including the daily news feed.
Our readership has grown over 1,750% since 2001. If someone had told us 15 years ago that the magazine would be read by over 65,000 people, I wouldn’t believe you!
The SubTel Forum magazine is our flag-ship publication, but it is far from the most downloaded, or even the most profitable. And yet, here we are, 15 years later and it remains the single best published forum for open discourse in our corner of the telecoms industry.
I’ve been taking time on our 15th anniversary to sit still and reflect on how far we’ve come as a company, rather than ponder what new publications our readers would find useful. Our practice has always been
to supply timely and relevant products to you as best as possible – that thinking is what gave birth to the Almanac and Report. In times of need and concern, we want SubTel Forum to be your lighthouse, a resource that can offer, if nothing else, perspective on issues that concern our industry.
With that in mind, and while focusing on our core tenants of accessibility, we’ve been laying out what the next 15 years with SubTel Forum look like. While considering this, we’ve grappled with a couple of issues: for instance, what is SubTel Forum? Is it the magazine, or is it the organization that publishes these resources, including said magazine?
Launching in January, we are rolling out a completely different look and feel for our website, something that will focus exclusively on the fine publications that we produce. To answer our identity question, we will be dividing SubTel Forum into a handful of very specific divisions, with individual websites that will all accomplish different purposes. Firstly, the new “mothership” for the divisions is called STF
Inc, it is the publishing and administrative arm of SubTel Forum. In the future, all sales and production will be handled by STF Inc, thus taking the nittygritty reality of publication out of view from our readers. You can consider STF Inc to be the administrative office of a metaphorical restaurant.
If STF Inc is the administrative office, then SubTel Forum is the dining floor, where you our hungry patrons will be. SubTelForum.com will remain the home of the Magazine, Almanac, Report, and other publications, including the daily news feed. In regards to this site, you will see a streamlined experience, focused wholly on the publications.
Every restaurant needs a kitchen, there we will find STF Analytics, a name that you are all familiar with. This division is home to our diligent analysts and map makers, the same ones that work tirelessly to keep our submarine cable database updated, the maps accurate, and most importantly, produce those excellent industry reports.
The division STF Today will focus primarily on our conference and news coverage. You will remember seeing STF Today at PTC, with their video streaming of the Sunday Submarine Cable sessions, or from SubOptic 2016 with their daily wrap-ups and interview series. This division will handle all our “in-person” reporting and conference support.
Lastly, the division STF Events will accomplish conference support, including promotion and management.
By dividing SubTel Forum into these five distinct divisions, our aim is to create a streamlined experience for our readers and clients. SubTel Forum has simply outgrown its shell, so to speak, and needs a new one.
There is no better time to discuss the future with you, our readers, than on our 15th anniversary. We’ve grown in ways that we never anticipated, even in just my seemingly short 9 years here. We propose this plan to you with the hope that these changes will give us the room to grow and fill the needs that the industry has for information distribution, analysis, and opinion.
In the meantime, pardon our dust, we are undergoing extraordinary renovations.
Loyally yours,
Kristian Nielsen Vice President
STF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES DEVELOPMENT
Throughout this year, SubTel Forum has evolved to help meet the needs of our industry. We have launched new products and services, and expanded those already in use. These changes and improvements have helped to make 2016 SubTel Forum’s best year ever.
Submarine Cable Database
The heart and soul of everything SubTel is the Submarine Cable Database. Nearly all our products are powered by this most comprehensive collection of submarine cable system data in the world. This year, we continued to improve its capabilities, allowing us to more flexibly address our needs and those of our supporters.
STF Analytics
STF Analytics is a new division of SubTel Forum created this year. This division is now responsible for everything data and reporting. The Submarine Cable Database, Submarine Cable Almanac, Submarine Telecoms Industry Report, Online Cable Map and now custom reporting are all currently under the purview of this division. It has largely
been responsible for improving and expanding all of SubTel’s data collection and reporting capabilities for this wildly successful year.
Submarine Cable
Almanac
By far our most popular product, the Submarine Cable Almanac continued to improve upon the scope of information offered, as well as the accuracy of said information. This product more than any other benefitted directly from improvements made to our Submarine Cable Database and continues to be a staple resource for the submarine fiber industry.
Submarine Telecoms Industry Report
Another extremely popular product, this year the Industry Report was produced entirely in-house. The information and analysis provided was more comprehensive than ever before, and set new download records.
Supported by many of the top movers and shakers of the industry, this product continues to be one of SubTel Forum’s most important offerings.
Submarine Cable Map
An industry favorite, the Submarine Cable Map continues to improve each year. With the improvements to our cable database, this year’s map will be more accurate than ever.
Online Cable Map
Launched earlier this year just before SubOptic 2016, the SubTel Forum Online Cable Map is meant to be an interactive and more informative version of our popular print map. Like the Submarine Cable Almanac, users can see details on all the submarine cable systems in the world. As of November, it has received over 38,000 views.
Daily News Feed
STF Today
submarine cable ALMANAC
The daily news feed is the foundation of everything we do here at SubTel Forum. It provides the industry with up to the minute headlines to keep everyone informed and aware of how the world of submarine fiber is doing. It is also our primary source of data, feeding into the Submarine Cable Database. This year we have continued to improve the look and feel of the Daily News Feed, consolidating and adding categories and tags to help you get the information you need faster.
STF Today provides video and conference support for events relevant to the submarine fiber industry. Since 2013, we have provided live streaming support for those events that request it. This year, we attended PTC ’16 and SubOptic 2016. At PTC ’16, we expanded and improved upon our livestreaming offerings, covering more sessions with a higher quality. At SubOptic 2016, we broadened our video coverage, and made available on our YouTube channel a full interview series with experts and innovators from around the industry.
SAGE WORDS
November marks the 15th anniversary of Submarine Telecoms Forum.
We’ve reached out to the industry leaders who have been incredibly supportive over the years for some wisdom regarding where we as an industry has come, and where we are going.
Andy Lipman – Senior Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
“While the submarine cable industry has wildly vacillated over the past 15 years, one of the few true constants has been the SubTel Forum. The entire submarine cable industry, no matter our particular discipline or industry expertise, eagerly looks forward to this publication. SubTel Forum is the true chronicler and sounding board of our dynamic and ever changing industry sector. And, while I’ve always enjoyed reading SubTel Forum, no matter the economic climate, it is, to be sure, even more delightful to read now that the global environment for submarine cables has dramatically improved from the depths of the past 10-12 years.
As a lawyer heavily involved for over three decades in the submarine cable industry, I especially appreciate SubTel Forum’s annual legal/regulatory issue. I have been fortunate to have been asked to write a relevant legal topic for that targeted issue for many years. I learn much from my colleagues and hope my pieces have been well received, as well. Legal issues, industry colleagues and the SubTel Forum, all remain true irreplaceable constants in this space.
Finally, hats off to Wayne Nielsen and his family and staff for their Herculean efforts in publishing this invaluable tool and Journal for the industry. I am honored to be a small part of the history.”
Dave Millar – President, Fugro Pelagos, Inc.
“Virtually all industries and markets are cyclical in nature, but when the telecommunications market crashed in 2001, I don’t think most of us expected the recovery, at least in the submarine telecommunications sector, to be as slow and long as it turned out to be. There was probably a recognition and acceptance that the industry would never be restored to the frenzied levels that preceded the crash, but at the same time, I for one, was surprised by how long the submarine telecommunications sector of the industry remained depressed.
Fifteen years later, despite some minor ups and downs, the submarine telecommunications sector has generally expanded and is currently in a relatively strong and robust state. The submarine cable systems themselves have seen tremendous technological advances over this period, but the survey technology and methods used to support their installation have changed very little during this period. The reality is that there have been technological advances in survey as well, but the submarine telecommunications sector has been slow to adopt them. My expectation is that this will change over the next fifteen years, as automation in survey is further advanced and as these new technologies / methods becomes more affordable to an industry that historically has been hesitant to increase survey budgets.”
Doug Burnett – Partner, Squire Patton Boggs
“I congratulate STF on its 15th anniversary milestone. I recall when Wayne visited our office to tell me about his new project. I was skeptical but did admire his can-do attitude. I cannot tell you how often I use STF publications whether it is the Global Almanac or the e-magazine. It is a key part of my tool kit for cable work. But more importantly, STF has donated time, effort, maps, and advice on countless projects I have worked on for the ICPC, including a chapter in Submarine Cables, the Handbook for Law and Policy.
Significant changes in the industry include the major entrance into the submarine cable business by leading content providers in completion with traditional cable system operators. A major challenge has been the fact that companies living off the experience of seasoned professionals instead of investing in training of new and upcoming professionals. Finally, the cable community is just beginning to publicize its critical role in the world’s global infrastructure and its benign environmental impact. This needs to continue and expand by everyone involved in the business. If the cable industry’s success and neutral environmental impact is not appreciated by States, it feeds efforts by some States and environmental groups to take over and regulate the industry and restrict the freedom to lay and repair cables that is a vital part of the cable community’s historical success.
In the next 15 years, the industry will be continuing to change beyond anything we recognize today. I look forward with confidence to the future knowing STF will be there to share insights and provide a neutral forum for discussion of ideas and addressing challenges.”
Greg Berlocher – CEO, NewStar Energy Services
“Congratulations to SubTel Forum on its 15th anniversary! SubTel Forum has kept us informed regarding important developments, both commercial and technological, in the field of subsea fiber optics. Many publications are narrowly focused on one industry, making it a bit of a challenge to track down information. I have always appreciated the fact that SubTel Forum is multi-faceted, covering a range of different applications across a range of industries. In addition, SubTel Forum has provided a voice for vendors and end user alike and the Subsea Fiber Optic Market has benefited from your publication.
Congratulations again to the SubTel Forum team!”
John Hibbard – CEO, Hibbard Consulting & President, Pacific Telecommunications Council (2009-2012)
“When Wayne invited me to reflect on the last 15 years in our industry paralleling the production of his superb magazine, it made me realise how far we have come in that period.
15 years ago we were still in the early development of the optical amplifier and little did we realise what its development would realise. From days of 16 x 2.5G on a fibre to 100 x 100G is mind-blowing and we ain’t stopped yet. However, to me the most significant development has been the ability to progressively upgrade cables so they are no longer retired typically after 10-15 years because they are full and operationally expensive to continue. I attribute much of this fantastic development to the introduction of non-OEM upgrade technology pioneered by Xtera (then Azea) and closely followed by Ciena and Infinera. This initiative not only reduced dramatically the cost of enhancing cable capacity but provided a stronger competitive technology challenge than had hitherto been the case with the incumbent system suppliers.
To me, that is the major reason for the stunning development of our industry over SubTel Forum’s lifetime.”
John Horne, Secretary to the SubOptic Executive Committee
Thirty years ago, I had the fortune to attend SubOptic 1986 in Versailles, when 400 people from within the embryonic world of undersea fibre optic systems gathered together. This was not quite the first international conference on this subject, that prize going to the UK’s Institution of Electrical Engineers, who organised a previous event in 1979 in London. It was however the first event at which people could talk about commercially available systems being installed, including the first Transatlantic system, TAT8.
March on 30 years and in April of this year SubOptic celebrated its 30th Birthday with SubOptic 2016 being held in Dubai - and this conference included a well-earned party to showcase the important people who have contributed too and the major milestones that have occurred over this period. The party included a presentation by SubTel Forum for the best papers presented at the event itself – now a regular feature.
This 30 year period has essentially covered the history of commercially available undersea optical fibre systems. It also encompasses the changing nature of the community who both implement such systems, to the nature of communications itself. Both of which we could not have dreamt of in those early days of 1986.
Part of the history of this period, especially over the past 15 years has been the presence of SubTel Forum, an invaluable source of information and comment, about our industry. I congratulate it on its growing success and look forward to reading it well into the future.
Michael Rieger, Vice President, TE SubCom
“Congratulations to SubTel Forum on its 15th anniversary! I am always impressed and pleased to see such continuity in our industry. As we celebrate this milestone, it is a pleasure to reminisce on the amazing events and associates of that period, which coincidently happens to be roughly my same tenure in the industry.
It’s remarkable to look back and recall the excitement of TGN; its concept, design, construction, operation and ultimate sale to Tata. TGN was the embodiment of that stage in our industry’s cycle: consortium to private, and then back to more traditional carriers. This is certainly relevant history as we navigate today’s even more dramatic fluidity of ownership among Telcos and the burgeoning content players.
Equally stunning is the unyielding advancement of the undersea technology. We have gone from the ”glut,” wondering who would consume all these Gigabits, to now installing systems in the 100s of Terabits. Yet we are still planning systems that leverage a combination of industry-leading wet and dry gear that could double this potential in the coming years.
Lastly, I want to note how much I have enjoyed the community that is the undersea business. This is an industry comprised of experts who work collaboratively to the greater goal unlike any other I have experienced, and I don’t anticipate that changing anytime soon. Certainly, not before we celebrate the next big milestone for SubTel Forum!
Congratulations Wayne and team. I look forward to seeing you and all the faithful again at PTC.”
Ragnar Vogt – Director Special Projects, Hybrid Underwater Cables, Nexans Norway AS
“Our best wishes for celebrating your anniversary and best wishes for a prosperous future.
With the long coast line of Norway, the submarine history of Nexans Norway goes back 100 years. Nexans worked closely with Telenor to develop and qualify optical submarine cables with the first commercial cable installed in 1986. and already in 1987 the first contracts were signed with clients abroad bringing the activity into the international markets.
Nexan’s’ focus has been on cables for un-repeatered systems with today’s well known URC-1 cable. Later, Nexans expanded its submarine activity developing repeater cables to meet the needs of new players, and the first ROC-1 cable was installed in South America in 2007. Today the second-generation cable branded ROC-2, is already well established in the market.
The market has recently seen several game changers: The internet traffic is doubling every year. More vendors have addressed the repeater market as turn key vendors, but without their own cable. The OTTs challenge the traditional solutions in order to reduce cost and implementation time. Private players as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are establishing their own global networks.
For Nexans it is an opportunity that Norway works hard to attract data center establishments taking advantage of “green and cheap energy”, requiring more connections to the country. The future looks bright!”
Robert Cash - Business Development Manager, Parkburn Precision Handling Systems Ltd.
“Having been coerced by my peers to join the marine handling systems business unit of a “Dowty” aerospace factory in 1996, I knew not of the 20-year roller coaster ride upon which I was about to embark. Who could have predicted the borderline chaotic digital explosion of the late 1990’s, the collapse and then calming consolidation of the noughties, through to today’s intensifying data appetite and the resultant cautious investments in subsea system expansion. Back then I had a Sega mega drive and hair, now I have a wife, 2 children and an X-Box 1 complete with a large bill every month for fibre optic fed TV and broadbandnow that’s progress!
In the quieter moments though it’s great to reflect that I would not change a thing, and that my very small and very humble contribution to the world of submarine telecoms has helped the children of the world text message each other at 100 per words a minute in the same room - pre-school.”
Robin Russell – CEO, Solomons Oceanic Cable Company
“Congratulations to SubTel Forum on 15 years of high quality analysis of the industry. In that time we saw enthusiastic embrace of submarine fibre as the twenty-first century dawned; a wave of bankruptcies from a mismatch between the massive capability of the new global backbone and the limitations of lastmile delivery networks; a period of consolidation exploiting the bankruptcy-reduced cost base to fuel explosive data growth as access technologies improved; continuing technological innovation supporting a virtuous cycle of real cost reductions; and the emergence of a sustainable global mesh.
I would like to emphasise two particular aspects of this dynamic history: the quality of the people who have shaped it, and the growing connection of remote communities. I have worked in telecommunications for more than forty years, encountered many outstanding people, and travelled the world. It has been a special privilege to meet and work with the incredibly talented and friendly people who own the self-deprecating label of “cable trash”. Through the efforts of these cable trash, we are seeing remote communities like those of the Pacific islands connected to the global information network, a development that seemed out of reach just fifteen years ago. Let’s hold to the values that enable inclusion.”
Shota Masuda – Senior Manager, Head of Sales, Submarine Network Division, NEC Corporation
設立15周年、おめでとうございます
“15 years ago was definitely the Dark Age for the submarine cable industry just after the burst of the IT bubble. Since then, this industry has recovered to its pre-bubble level, we have welcomed new ISP players into the industry, and although there are still ups and downs, we are doing fairly well as an industry.
The ordinary people seldom realize nor appreciate that their world is supported by the infrastructure this industry provides, but that’s OK, because we don’t need the attention nor fanfare. But this self-awareness of what we do is the backbone of society, keeps us motivated and pushes us forward. SubTel Forum has been with this industry through such times, covering and keeping record of each step we take. A 15-year-old would be in the midst of its adolescence, so no doubt, SubTel Forum has reached an important milestone. I’d like to congratulate Wayne and the team at SubTel Forum, a wonderful and happy 15th birthday.“
Stewart Ash, Independent Consultant
“When SubTel Forum was first published, the world was in shock after 9/11, google wasn’t a verb and sharks apparently attacked submarine cables. The industry was riding high on a bubble created by deregulation, the dotcom boom and the availability of capital funding for new cables. This did not last, the bubble burst, resulting in major market retrenchment, with its attendant fire sales, bankruptcies, Chapter 11 filings and redundancies. My first contribution to SubTel Forum came at its nadir, in September 2005, an epilogue to ‘From Elektron to ‘e’ Commerce’, published in August 2000. Then, from March 2009 until November 2015, I wrote the ‘Back Reflection’ column.
Today, the future for submarine cables seems guaranteed, and is arguably one of the most important industries in modern society. Vast numbers of people have almost instant access to a wealth of information through the World Wide Web, something that is only possible thanks to the global network of submarine fibre optic cables. These are the arteries of the internet, enabling e-commerce and shaping social media. Internet access is, quite literally, the main driver of some national economies. However, very few people know or even care how this is possible, so SubTel Forum still has a big job to do!
Looking forward, my biggest concern is whether the next generation will find our industry as rewarding as I have and can take it forward to bigger and better things. Hopefully they will finally explode the myth of shark bite and perhaps create some myths and legends of their own!”
Tony Frisch – SVP Repeater and BU, Xtera Communications, Inc.
“Capacity per fibre has increased around 100x, with spectacular changes in terminal technology, which started with 10G, direct detection systems and just a few wavelengths. Today’s coherent systems using Digital Signal Processing and Soft-decision FEC can use two polarisations per wavelength, close to Nyquist channel-spacing and multi-level QAM to achieve 100-200G/ wavelength and we are getting close to the Shannon limit.
At the same time, subsea amplifier bandwidth has increased, mainly by using better pumps and filters, but most recently Raman amplification has been exploited to exceed 50 nm. Subsea plant is also getting more complex, with BUs moving from simple fibre-routing devices to steering wavelengths. To control wavelength steering and offer better BU power reconfiguration more suppliers are moving to active supervisory and subsea plant is becoming increasingly “smart,” a trend which gives some nice challenges.
The entry of new suppliers and operators has created a highly competitive market, with enormous pressure to reduce costs/ prices while increasing capacity and adding features. Nonetheless, I still see possible areas for improvement and innovation and feel – like many others, I suspect – that it continues to be a unique and fascinating business.”
Virginia Hoffman – President, Great Eastern Group, Inc.
“The installation of a submarine fiber optic system is the culmination of sometimes years of preparation involving various labor and asset expenditures before a return on investment is seen. Prior to installation, the system design has been determined, the marine survey has set the route, and the vendors have been chosen. However, this sentence has omitted one of the most important elements that affects cost, schedule and even design – environmental permitting and requirements. Over the years due to increased rules and regulations, this element has evolved into a major factor for a successful and cost effective installation. Delay in permit acquisition – whether it is for the marine survey or the actual installation – may cost the customer ship delays with resultant installation schedule impacts and follow on cost implications. Delay in identification of any environmental special conditions or mitigations may also result in construction schedule impacts and possibly after installation action items that are left undone opening up the possibility of future legal action or fines.
This shifting of environmental evolution now requires the permitting actions to start immediately upon system idea concept and now requires inclusion of permitting actions into program management for adequate and early identification of risk as it must be managed within the context of the system development and for associated schedule, technical and cost risks. And must also now include after installation activities to adhere to agency regulations.”
THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE AUTHORS
THAT HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO SUBTEL FORUM OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS:
ACMA
Adam Hotchkiss
Adam Sharp
Al Digabriele
Alain Peuch
Alan Mauldin
Alan Robinson
Alasdair Wilkie
Alexei Pilipetskii
Alfred G. Richardson
Alice Shelton
Amanda Prudden
Andrea Rodriguez. Associated Press
Andrés J. Fígoli Pacheco
Andrew D. Lipman
Andrew Evans
Andrew M. Ray
Andy Bax
Andy Cole
Andy Lumsden
Andy Riga
Andy Shaw
Anne LeBoutillier
Antoine Lécroart
Anup Changaroth
Arnaud Leroy
Arunachalam Kandasamy
Basil Demeroutis
Benoit Kowalski
Bernard Logan
Bertrand Clesca
Bill Barney
Bill Burns
Bill Carter
Bill Glover
Bill Kolb
Bill Wall
Bob Fredrickson
Bob Stuart
Bran Herlihy
Brett O’Riley
Brett P. Ferenchak
Brett Worrall
Brian Crawford
Brian Lavallée
Bruce Neilson-Watts
Bruce Rein
Captain Nick Parker
Cate Stubbings
Catherine Creese
Catherine Kuersten
Catherine T. Dixon
Charles Foreman
Charlotte Winter
Chris Barnes
Chris Butler
Chris Ellis
Christian Annoque
Christian von der Ropp
Chuck Kaplan
Cliff Scapellati
Clive McNamara
Colin Anderson
Craig Donovan
Dallas J. Meggitt
Daniel Hughes
Daniel J Carragher
Daniel Perera
Daniel Wiser
Danielle Piñeres
Daryl Chaires
David Lassner
David Latin
David Lipp
David Liu Jianmin
David Martin
David Mazzarese
David Millar
David R Coughlan
David Robles
David Warnes
Dean Veverka
Debra Brask
Derek Cassidy
Derek Greenham
Devin Sappington
Digital Energy Journal
Dmitri Foursa
Donald M. Hussong
Doug Madory
Doug Ranahan
Doug Stroud
Douglas R. Burnett
Dr. Abiodun Jagun
Dr. Barbara Dean
Dr. Frank Donaghy
Dr. Herve Fevrier
Dr. Jeff Gardner
Dr. Joerg Schwartz
Dr. Jose Andres
Dr. M. Nedbal
Dr. Merrion Edwards
Dr. Michael Nedbal
Dr. Paul Davison
Dr. Stephen Grubb
Dr. Ted R. Clem
Dr. William Barattino
Dr. William Marra
Edwin Danson
Edwin Muth
Elaine Stafford
Eric R. Handa
Erick Contag
Erlend Andersen
Eyal Lichtman
Fan Xiaoyan
Fiber Daryl Chaires
Fiona Beck
Francis Audet
Frank Cuccio
Gabriel Ruahn
Gary Gibbs
Geoff Ball
Geoff Bennett
Geoffrey Thornton
Georg Mohs
George M. Foote
George Miller
Georges Krebs
Gerald Soloway
Glenn S. Gerstell
Glenn Wellbrock
Gordon Duzevich
Graham Cooper
Graham Evans
Graham Marle
Graham White
Greg Berlocher
Greg Kunkle
THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE AUTHORS THAT HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO SUBTEL FORUM OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS:
Greg Otto
Gregor McPherson
Gunnar Berthelsen
Guy W. Arnos
Harald Bock
Helen Veverka
Horst Etzkorn
Howard Kidorf
Hubert Souisa
Hunter Newby
Ian Douglas
Ian Fletcher
Ian Gaitch
Igor Czajkowski
Ilissa Miller
Inge Vintermyr
Ioannis Konstantinidis
Iris Hong
IT Telecom
Jack Richards
Jack Runfola
James Barton
James Case
James Cowie
JAMSTEC
Jas Dhooper
Jaymie Cutaia
Jean Devos
Jean Paul Colonna
Jed Duvall
Jeffrey M. Snider
Jeffrey Snider
Jim Bishop
Jim Byous
Jim Lemberg
Joe Capasso
Joel Whitman
Joerg Schwartz
John Golding
John Hibbard
John Horne
John Kasdan
John Manock
John Pockett
John Tibbles
John Walker
John Weisbruch
Jon Seip
Jorn Jespersen
Jorn Wardeberg
José Chesnoy
Jose Duarte
Joshua I. Henson
Judi Clark
Jules BenBenek
Julian Rawie
Kaori Shikinaka
Karen Boman
Karl Jeffery
Katherine Edwards Katsuyoshi Kawaguchi
Keith J. Schofield
Ken Du Vall
Ken Weiner
Kent Bressie
Kevin G. Summers
Kieran Clark
Kris Ohleth
Kristian Nielsen
Kurt Ruderman
Kylie Wansink
Larry Schwartz
Leigh Frame
Liam P. Talbot
Linda Evans
Lindsey McDonald
Lionel Carter
Lucia Bibolini
Madeleine Findley
Mai Abou-Shaban
Marc Fullerbaum
Marianne Murfett
Mark Davidson
Mark Enright
Mark Hukill, Ph.D.
Mark Wickham
Marsha Spalding
Martin Foster
Matthew Milstead
Maui Sanford
Maxim Bolshtyansky
Meredith Cleveland
Merrion Edwards
Michael Craigs
Michael Jones
Michael Ruddy
Michael S. Carter
Michael Schneider
Michel Chbat
Mickaël Marie
Mike Conradi
Mike Hynes
Mike Last
Morgan Heim Motoyoshi Tokioka
Mr. Hugh Thomson
Mr. Jeffrey Hoel
Murray Eldridge
Nancy Poirier
Neal S. Bergano
Neil Lambert
Neil Tagare
Nguyen T. Vu
Nicole Starosielski
Nigel Bayliff
Nigel Shaw Nikos Nikolopoulos
Ning Jing
Norma Spruce
Olav Harald Nordgard
Olivier Courtois
Olivier Plomteux
Omar Jassim Bin Kalban
Pamela Barnett
Paul Biddle
Paul Deslandes
Paul Eastaugh
Paul F. Szajowski
Paul Gagnier
Paul Grant
Paul McCann
Paul O. Gagnier
Paul Polishuk
Paul Rudde
Paul Treglia
Paula Dobbyn
Per B. Hansen
Per Ingeberg
Pete LeHardy
Peter A. Evans
THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE AUTHORS
THAT
HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO SUBTEL FORUM OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS:
Peter Lange
Peter Liu (Liu Bo)
Peter Phibbs
Phil Footman-Williams
Philip Roche
Pierre Tremblay
Public Knowledge
Puja Borries
Raj Mishra
Rannveig Bergerød Aase
Raul Magallanes
Ray Chrisner
Ray Drabble
Renzo Ravaglia
Rex Ramsden
Rich Potter
Richard Buchanan
Richard Elliott
Richard Faint
Richard Nickelson
Richard Romagnino
Rigzone
Rita Rukosueva
Rob Munier
Robert Bannon
Robert Mazer
Robert McCabe
Robert Mecarini
Robin Russell
Roche, Winter, Blann
Rogan Hollis
Roger Carver
Roland Lim
Rolf Boe
Ron Crean
Ross Buntrock
Ross Pfeffer
Russ Doig
Rusty O’Connor
Sally Sheedy
Salon Ma
Samir Seth
Sammy J. Thomas
Scott Foster
Scott Griffith
Scott McMullen
Sean Bergin
Serena Seng
Sergey Ten
Seth Davis
Sherry Sontag
Siew Ying Oak
Simon Brodie
Simon Frater Sir Christopher Bland
Stan Kramer
Stephanie Ingle
Stephen Drew
Stephen Jarvis
Stephen Lentz
Stephen Nielsen
Steve Dawe
Steve Lentz
Steve Misencik
Steve Wells
Steven Gringeri
Steven Shamburek
Steven Wells
Stewart Ash
Stuart Barnes Submarine Networks World
SubOptic 2013
Sverre Torben
Tayo Adelaja
Ted Kitamura
Telegeography
Theresa Hyatte
Thomas A. Soja
Tiejun J. Xia
Tim Janaitis
Tim Pugh
Tim Stronge
Toby Bailey
Todd Borkey
Tom Davis
Tom McMahon
Tony Frisch
Travis Kassay
Troy F. Tanner
Troy Tanner
TSA Newsfeed
Tsunekazu Matsudaira
Ulises R. Pin
Vegard Briggar Larsen
Vicky Liang
Vinay Rathore
Virginia Hoffman
Vivian Hua
Wang Jingwei
Wang Ke
Wang Yanpu
Wayne Nielsen
Wesley Wright
Wilfred Kwan
William C Marra
William Harrington
William Wall
Xu Yewei
Yali Z. Liu
Yiannis Koulias
Yoani Sanchez
Yoshio Utsui
Yuzhu You
Yves Baribeau
Yves Ruggeri
Zatri Arbi
Zhang Kai
Zhao Ling
Zhu Hongda
ADVERTISER’S CORNER
BY KRISTIAN NIELSEN
This has been a huge issue already, and I’ve certainly had the opportunity to wax a little more poetic than regularly, so I will keep this short and sweet!
It’s hard to believe that the magazine has been published now for 15 years, and moreover, I’ve been a part of this history for almost 9 years.
We’ve had some huge achievements over the years - resurrecting the Cable Map, releasing 10 new publications, creating the first industry dedicated news feed, all
while never charging our readers a single cent for the privilege.
Our progress has only ever been made possible by our sponsors. Every product that we’ve come up with over the years, you’ve given us a chance, you’ve supported us, you’ve made future publications possible. To all of our sponsors, past, present, and future, I want to give you my earnest and heart-felt thanks. Your continued trust in our little news rag has kept the lights on in lean times, and allowed us to grow into the honest-to-God newsroom that we run today.
That said, our goals for the next 15 years are ambitious, and can only be possible with the support of our authors and sponsors.
In celebration of our 15th anniversary, all advertising through the end of the year can be bought at a 15% discount. Spots are selling up quick in the Cable Map and Calendar, so as they say “act now”!
Gratefully yours,
Kristian Nielsen Vice President
Kristian Nielsen literally grew up in the business since his first ‘romp’ on a BTM cableship in Southampton at age 5. He has been with Submarine Telecoms Forum for a little over 6 years; he is the originator of many products, such as the Submarine Cable Map, STF Today Live Video Stream, and the STF Cable Database. In 2013, Kristian was appointed Vice President and is now responsible for the vision, sales, and over-all direction and sales of SubTel Forum.
+1 703.444.0845 knielsen@subtelforum.com
Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc.
21495 Ridgetop Circle, Suite 201 Sterling, Virginia 20166, USA
ISSN No. 1948-3031
PUBLISHER:
Wayne Nielsen
VICE PRESIDENT: Kristian Nielsen
MANAGING EDITOR: Kevin G. Summers
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS:
José Chesnoy, Abhijit Chitambar, Kieran Clark, James Halliday, Scott Jackson, Brian Lavallée, Kristian Nielsen, Wayne Nielsen, Kevin G. Summers
Contributions are welcomed. Please forward to the Managing Editor at editor@subtelforum.com.
Submarine Telecoms Forum magazine is published bimonthly by Submarine Telecoms Forum, Inc., and is an independent commercial publication, serving as a freely accessible forum for professionals in industries connected with submarine optical fiber technologies and techniques. Submarine Telecoms Forum may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the permission of the publishers.
Liability: while every care is taken in preparation of this publication, the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information herein, or any errors which may occur in advertising or editorial content, or any consequence arising from any errors or omissions, and the editor reserves the right to edit any advertising or editorial material submitted for publication.
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CODA
BY KEVIN G. SUMMERS
Fifteen years is a long time. We’ve spent a good portion of this issue celebrating our past, thanking the authors who contributed to SubTel Forum over the years and the sponsors who made those 90 previous issues possible. We’ve thanked the readers, the staff (past and present) and the visionaries who conceived the original idea. But there’s one group that’s been left out and I want to address them.
Thank you to the people of this industry who put in the hours every day to connect Point A with Point B.
Thank you to the folks that work on the cableships. To the divers and shore-end inspectors and ship captains all the people that install the cables.
Thank you to the men and women that work in the cable factories. To those folks with aching backs and aching feet that operate the spooling machines and deliver a high-quality product every time.
Thank you to the sales force, to the marketing teams, to the people that run the booths at the conferences and have to pack up when it’s all said and done.
Thank you to the upgraders, to the engineers and mappers and the people that keep the industry moving forward.
Thank you to the workers. Thank you to people that put in long hours and get the job done.
This industry has seen its ups and downs over the past fifteen years. There were booms and busts, but here we are, working hard and doing a damn good job of it.
Here I am, working at a farm in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains and able to reach out and touch the other side of the world. You are the ones that made that possible, and I take my hat off to you.
Thank you all for supporting SubTel Forum over the past fifteen years. We literally could
not have done this without your support, encouragement, and occasional criticism. You’ve kept us growing, improving, and on point since 2001.
Here’s to the next fifteen years of debate and discover in the pages of Submarine Telecoms Forum!
Kevin G. Summers is the Editor of Submarine Telecoms Forum and has been supporting the submarine fibre optic cable industry in various roles since 2007. Outside of the office, he is an author of fiction whose works include ISOLATION WARD 4, LEGENDARIUM and THE MAN WHO SHOT JOHN WILKES BOOTH.
editor@subtelforum.com
Dear Wayne
My last word to cross the ocean… 15 years already, Wayne! I knew from day one that your SubTel Forum initiative would meet a great success. The Sub-cable industry had become a much diversified, global community and was in search of something which could cement it together. Seeing this as a possible extension of SubOptic, I was pleased, at your request, to bring my modest contribution. I saw there the opportunity for me to express my views to many of my friends in this industry! And thus, the title: « Letter to a friend »
You were kind enough, Wayne, to publish more than 60 such letters from 2001 until 2012. But you showed some wisdom in placing them not as front page editorial but rather at the very end as a dessert or a refreshing ice-cream.
LETTER TO MY FRIEND, WAYNE NIELSEN
I had just left my last operational job and I had then recovered my full freedom of speech!!
Reading back these letters gives a good idea of the period of time which started with a deep depression, the very logical consequence of the crazy 1997-2000 tsunami!
« People’s behavior had created an artificial peak that could produce nothing else than a deep ravine; this activity needs to return to wisdom ». (First letter. 2001). It is my observation that “decisive moments” in history are the facts of some specific individuals. A yes or a no of key people can change the course of events. Our Cyrus W. Field is only one example beautifully described by the great writer Stephen Zweig in 1929 under the title “The first word to cross the Atlantic” in his book, “Decisive moments in History.” I keep in
mind myself the name of individuals from our industry who triggered significant turns.
Submarine cable evolution is not a river rushing down a predetermined slope, leaving no room for men’s actions. Positive facts as well as negative ones are our facts! Most of my letters were calls to the sense of responsibility. We need to be leaders toward the long term, not just managers of the short term. Everyone, for sure, needs to work hard to bring success to the company or the project to which he belongs, but everybody must also behave with a sense for the general interest. It means, for instance, accepting the fact that an appropriated mix of sane competition and smart cooperation is the best way to serve the activity. “Coopetition” is an excellent cocktail, a combination of muscles and brain. It is a sport, tough, demanding good for health, nothing to do with a war where a competitor is an enemy one tries to eliminate. A sane competition is an exciting alcohol, but at a certain stage it kills! Cooperation means wisdom, smartness, respect and often real efficiency.
I indeed reread these letters shamelessly. Some do not deserve too much attention, but most of them reflect my enthusiasm for our activity which I have always considered to be a service, as a mission to fulfill. But I need to tell you, Wayne, where lies my main frustration: The clear inability of
our industry to look at itself in a mirror. Looking back and learning our lesson seems just culturally unfeasible. Both SubTel Forum and SubOptic are offering a space, an audience to whoever wants to show up. None of the two media even attempted to become a real forum of debate and collective reflection. They both are editors only. As a consequence, the speakers or the writers are always preaching the “gospel of their company”. Who raises the voice of the general interest? Who can answer my favorite question “Are we building all together the best possible global network?”
I leave it to you dear readers to whom I offer all my best.
This is my post-mortem very last word, my cry from the grave!!
Jean Devos
Aqest senior advisor
