Why submarine cable system

This PEACE cable system substantially reduces network latency by adopting shortest direct route connectivity, providing cost-effective capacity in an economically growing region and enhancing route diversity between Asia, Africa and Europe.

The IOX Cable System will be the first open cable system in the region and is targeted to be completed in The Africa-1 cable system will also land in Sudan, cross Egypt through diverse new terrestrial routes on the way to France, and further connect other countries in the Mediterranean such as Algeria, Tunisia and Italy. The DARE1 cable system is designed with a three-fibre-pair trunk, with each fibre pair delivering capacity of channels at Gbps.

LION 1 was ready for service in March, PrimeTel, established in Cyprus in , operates the only private island-wide fiber optic network alternative to Cyta Cyprus Telecommunications Authority , a corporate body wholly owned by the government of the Republic of Cyprus. PrimeTel owns and operates an independent, privately owned submarine cable landing station in Yeroskipos, for the landing of HAWK cable.

Hawk was initially launched on the Marseille-Cyprus segment to provide adequate bandwidth for local service providers who were concentrating on meeting high speed connectivity needs of emerging broadband internet users in Cyprus. Aletar is a km submarine cable system connecting Tartous in Syria to Alexandria in Egypt. The Aletar cable system consists of two fibre pairs with eight optical amplifiers, with a design capacity of 5 Gbps, ready for service on April 7, The Aletar consortium comprises Egyptian Telecom.

Management Telecom Egypt, Lebanese Ministry Of Telecom. The LEV cable consists of 2 fiber pairs. Each fiber pair has the initial design capacity of 8 wavelengths of 2. The LEV cable system forms a ring pretection among the cable landing station, each 2 landing points have exactly one fiber pair connecting them, forming one fiber ring with total capacity of 20Gbps.

Both of the Blue and Raman cable systems consists of 16 fiber optic pairs, and are expected to be ready for service in In fact, Sparkle's BlueMed cable shares fiber pairs and wet segment with the Blue cable system. The TE North cable system has been constructed by Alcatel-Lucent and utilises eight fibre pairs with total capacity of more than 10Tbps.

The TE North cable system is equipped with branching units which enable it to be extended to selected countries in the Mediterranean, thus creating a communication bridge between these countries, Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as business opportunities in the Mediterranean and Eurasia. Under the agreement, the TE North cable system has been extended to Cyprus via a direct branch and Cyta has acquired separate fibre pairs between Cyprus-Egypt and Cyprus-France, each with 96x10Gbps total capacity.

When it was first announce in May , 2Africa was 37, km in length, connecting 23 countries, including 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa. In August , 2Africa added 4 branches to extend connectivity to the Seychelles, the Comoros Islands and Angola and bring a new landing to south-east Nigeria.

Later in September , 2Africa officially announced the extension of 2Africa Pearls, extending to the Gulf, Pakistan and India , connecting 46 cable landing stations in 33 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, with a cable length of 45,km. The 2Africa cable system will implement a new technology, SDM1 from ASN, allowing deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs, incorporating optical switching technology to enable flexible management of bandwidth.

TEAS represents a unique opportunity to deploy an advanced network infrastructure which will provide an integration of data transport with open market access utilizing next-generation technology and is supported by local partners in each market. The total length of the Arctic Connect subsea cable will be 13, km. The Arctic Connect subsea cable project is expected to be finished between with an estimated cost of 0.

The Arctic Connect project is part of the efforts to improve the connectivity in Arctic areas, in line with the objectives of the Arctic Council. Previously, Cinia has already planned and completed the fast and cyber secure C-Lion1 submarine cable connection between Finland and Germany. The Arctic Connect cable aims to meet the current availability of and additional need for fibre-optic connectivity that are planned from Southern Finland to Kirkenes, Norway and Murmansk, Russia.

Cinia has already built the C-Lion1 submarine cable that connects Helsinki and Rostock. By adding the Arctic Connect subsea cable on the Arctic seabed, Cinia will be able to connect Europe with Russia and Asia, and provide a better internet connection with lower latency, thanks to the shorter distance. Additionally, the lower shipping traffic along the NSR will make Arctic Connect cable less prone to disruptions caused by human activities.

A preliminary study for Arctic Connect was launched in , followed by a political feasibility study conducted the next year. In December , Megafon agreed to create the split-ownership joint venture Arctic Link Development Oy with Cinia for the construction of the Artic Connect submarine cable. The Artic Connect submarine cable will be owned by an international consortium. Finland has already been successful in attracting investments into building data centres.

The KNOT terrestrial cable system spans over 1,km, providing capacity of Given the cable is carried over an optical ground wire associated with a regional high-tension electricity network GCCIA , it reduces the risk of cable cuts significantly, as is evident from the very high availability of the GCCIA network over the past 5 years.

It also expects to serve the international and regional needs of neighbouring countries, thereby further strengthening the role of Cyprus as a telecommunications hub. Through HARP, Telecom Egypt will offer a wide range of capacity solutions, up to dark fiber, based on a layer two and layer three architecture that can connect multiple points on the system to one another. Before launching the HARP cable system and in addition to involve in various subsea cable project, Telecom Egypt has participated in Google's Equiano and the 2Africa Consortium, the latest two subsea cable projects.

Telecom Egypt has partnered with Google on the Equiano cable project, to acquire fiber pairs on Equiano cable system and build the Equiano St Helena branch. The Minerva cable system is an independent private cable subsystem of the MedNautllus cable system, forming a direct self-healing ring between Cyprus and Italy Sicily , and through Telecom Italia Sparkle Pan-European networks, connecting to the rest of Europe, the US and beyond.

The Minerva cable system uses a dedicated express fibre pair with 10Gbps DWDM wavelengths on the MedNautllus cable system, directly connecting Cyprus and Italy, ready for service in Mediterranean Nautilus owns and operates the MedNautllus cable system, a submarine cable ring in the Mediterranean, which has been in operation since The MedNautilus network provides end-to-end connectivity from the eastern part of the Mediterranean to major destinations in Europe.

The MedNautilus Submarine System is a the first and only protected submarine ring-configured backbone in the Mediterranean, connecting Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel and Cyprus, and serves the growing capacity needs of the region.

Lev continues to serve the telecommunications needs of Israel and Cyprus, which was ready for service in March , with two fiber pairs. The MedNautilus network provides end-to-end connectivity from the eastern part of the Mediterranean to major destinations in Europe and is the leading connectivity solutions provider in the region. The ATHENA subsystem is the first direct fully redundant ring-configured network between Cyprus and Greece consisting of two integrated segments, one between Yeroskipos and Chania, the other between Chania and Athens, accessing additional international destinations via MedNautilus landing station in Athens.

In , Cyta and Telecom Italia Sparkle signed agreement for the construction of the Minerva cable system, also a subsystem of the MedNautllus submarine system, using a dedicated express fibre pair on the MedNautllus submarine system, directly connecting Cyprus and Italy. The seamless self-healing ring between the three countries is designed with 40 wavelengths, each capable of achieving up to 40Gbps. The SMW6 cable system consists of 10 fiber pairs, with The Silphium cable system is a km repeaterless submarine cable system connecting Darnah in Libya with Chania in Greece, across the Mediterranean Sea.

The Silphium cable system has an initial system capacity of 1. The LaValette cable system makes GO the first operator in Malta to have additional redundancy on international connectivity to another country other than Italy. The other two operators in Malta, Epic and Melita, each has one international subsea cable connecting Malta to Sicily, Italy.

Furthermore, the LaValette cable system lands on the West Coast of Malta, making GO the first and only operator to have access to international connectivity from a shore other than that from where the rest of the other international submarine cable systems land. In the same year, by the signing a notification of agreement by the Ministry of Post and ICT, authorizing Algeria Telecom to join the Orval project through the implementation of the Alval project adding a branch of km , financed from Algeria Telecom's own funds.

D9 announced later that the company has agreed to purchase rights to one fibre pair from Edge Network Services Ltd a subsidiary of Facebook on the recently announced 2Africa Pearls fibreoptic cable system, enabling connectivity from Europe through Egypt to Oman and India. D9 will market the route as EMIC Aqua Comms will operate and manage the capacity on behalf of D9 as an integral part of its expanding global subsea network.

The Polar Express subsea cable is a 12,km subsea cable along Russia's northern coast between the village of Teriberka in Kolsky District of Murmansk, on the Barents Sea, to the eastern port city of Vladivostok.

Prior to the Polar Express project, the main activity of Morsviazsputnik was the provision of Inmarsat mobile satellite communication services to legal entities and private users under the license of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications.

The Polar Express subsea cable system consists of six fiber pairs, offering up to Tbps of capacity. Southern Cross Next under construction. The initial configuration of the Australia-Guam Trunk provides a total of Gbps of capacity. The PPC-1 cable project was lunched on January 14, On September 22, , Internode released a press release claiming successful transmission of IP packets across the PPC-1 cable, making it the first commercial entity to make use of the PPC-1 cable.

The PPC-1 cable project was formally completed on October 8, The Pacific Fibre cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with wavelengths per fibre pair. By using the latest 40 Gbps per wavelength technology, the Pacific Fibre is expected to have a capacity of up to 5. The Pacific Fibre is the second international submarine cable system landing in New Zealand, with significant improvement to the international network resilience in New Zealand.

Unfortunately, the Pacific Fibre has ceased operation as at 1 August , citing an inability to raise enough investment to fund the cable build. The trans-Tasman Optikor Network is designed to provide initially a capacity of Gbps with 1 fiber pair, and eventually 6.

Axin Limited, founded in , is fully invested by the Sino Telecommunication, and plays major role in the national broad band project of New Zealand. This trans-Tasman Optikor Network will address the large capacity requirements in the Tasman region and bring competition to the capacity markets in Australia and New Zealand where are now dominated by the Southern Cross Cable Network and the undergoing Pacific Fibre.

West Coast. The Hawaiki Cable System has a initial design capacity of 30Tbps on its trans-pacific route offers, offer the following connecctions:. Territory of American Samoa, owns, constructs and operates the branch to American Samoa and corresponding landing station. Reannz will meet the annual fees out of its existing revenues.

The Hawaiki submarine cable system was ready for service on Jul. Each fibre pair is capable of operating at up to 10 Tbps. It is the first fibre connectivity to Niue and the Cook Islands. Located in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea is an island nation with numerous mountains and volcanoes, where domestic telecommunications largely relies on satellite and microwave communications.

Gondwana-1 is a km submarine cable network connecting New Caledonia and Australia, ready for service in September The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system is owned and operated by the incumbent government-owned carrier in New Caledonia, OPT. The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system consists of two parts, the main segment linking New Caledonia to Australia, and a short unrepeated segment from New Caledonia to the Loyalty Islands, with a landing stations at Poindimie Main island , Mouly Ouvea and Xepenehe Lifou.

The APNG-2 cable system was ready for service late The APNG-2 cable system was built by recovery and reuse of an 1, km section of the PacRimWest cable, which was recovered from just south of Guam, with the ship sailing towards the Solomon Islands.

PacRimWest is a fibre-optic cable with two fibre pairs. PacRimWest was designed to have an operational life of 25 years, but it was decommissioned from service in The ASC cable system was ready for service in September The AJC network was upgraded the addition of 40G technology in mid and the addition of G technology in late and early The ASSC-1 submarine cable system is a new cable connecting Australia, Indonesia and Singapore, comprises four fibre pairs and spans a distance of 4, km.

The ASSC-1 cable system will have an initial design capacity of 6. INDIGO cable system features new spectrum-sharing technology, each consortium member can deploy its own SLTE, upgrade their networks and enable capacity increases on demand independently.

Papua New Guinea is an island nation located in the South Pacific. The Trident cable will have interconnection points in Equinix IBX data centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Jakarta, as well as a landing point in Perth, providing greater connectivity for businesses, content providers and communications network providers.

The Minamiboso cable landing station will provide additional geographical diversity for U. The four fibre-pair international system delivers a minimum of 20 Tbps capacity to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands respectively, a total capacity of 40 Tbps.

The Solomon Islands currently relies solely on satellite for international voice and data communications. Known as the Coral Sea Cable System. The OAC delivers cost-effective, reliable, low-latency and diverse connectivity between Oman and Australia. CO, partnering with Omantel as landing partner in Oman, supplied by SubCom, and is expected to be completed by Q2 The KOETE subsea cable system is a 8,kilometer, carrier-neutral, high-speed low-latency subsea cable connecting with three data centre hubs in Perth, Darwin and Dampier, and seven cable landing stations CLS between Perth and Darwin, and onward connectivity from Perth to Malaysia via Indonesia and Singapore.

The segments from Perth to Darwin and Dampier consists of 16 fibre pairs, the segments from Perth to Malaysia via Indonesia and Singapore consists of a minimum of 3 fibre pairs.

The Asian segment of the TEA terrestrial cable network may run over:. The TEA terrestrial cable network enables a short latency and stable solution for traffic transiting Europe and Asia. The TEA terrestrial cable network is a meaningful alternative to the mainly US centric trans-Pacific cable systems in connecting internet networks between Europe and Asia.

The Super TSR features ulta low latency :. The mainline will pass along the shortest route from West to East of the country with stations in largest cities.

It is a highly reliable diverse route, built using the latest technology, and addresses the growing need for high bandwidth services and offers unique access to the Gulf region. Vodafone Qatar Q. This Djibouti-Ethiopia terrestrial cable currently carries approximately 1. Seabras-1 has been ready for operation as of September 8 th , Seabras-1 cable lands at Avon-by-the-Sea beach, New Jersey. In Brazil, Seabras-1 cable lands at Praia Grande.

Seabras-1 cable system consists of 6 fiber pairs, with a design capacity of 72 Tbps or 12Tbps per fiber pair. Through a management agreement, Seaborn Networks operates the Seabras-1 cable system and related business. Partners Group, a Switzerland-based private markets investment manager, provided equity financing for the Seabras-1 cable project and acquired in aggregate an approximate Natixis acted as exclusive Equity Advisor for the equity-raising process. There were announcements saying the significant investments on the Seabras-1 cable system by Microsoft and Tata Communications.

It is expected to be completed by the end of But such solution should be given up in the ARBR cable system. The Curie submarine cable system is a four-fibre-pair and 10,km cable connecting Los Angeles, California, and Valparaiso, Chile, with a branching unit for future connectivity to Panama. The Curie cable system is designed with 18Tbps per fiber pair and a total system design capacity of 72 Tbps.

Named after physicist and chemist Marie Curie, the Curie cable system will make Google the first major non-telecom company to build a private intercontinental cable.

Google claims it will be the first new cable to land in Chile in almost 20 years, and will become the largest single data pipe connecting the country. The Curie cable system was ready for service on November 15, GlobeNet submarine cable system spans 23, km serving North and South America with ring protection. Malbec is a new 2, km submarine cable that links the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina and will have a branching unit to reach Porto Alegre, Brazil.

When completed, it will be the first new submarine cable route to reach the Argentinian coast since Kanawa cable system increases in traffic and diversify the connection points to enable a better quality of service between French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe.

The Tannat cable consists of 6 fiber pairs, with an initial estimated design capacity of 90 Tbps, supplied by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.

The segment connecting Santos, Brazil, to Maldonado, Uruguay has been operational since mid Google and Antel announced in July to extended Tannat cable system to the nearby coastal city of Las Toninas in the Buenos Aires province, and the project was completed in December Junior is a km subsea cable connecting Rio de Janeiro to Santos in Brazil, ready for service in Google has invested in other private international subsea cables, including Curie , Dunant , Equiano , etc.

At Santos cable landing station, Junior, Tannat and Monet cable systems interconnect seamlessly, to form key infrastructure of Google could platform connecting the US, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina along the coast of Atlantic.

The MAC cable system consists of two optical fiber pairs, with an initial design capacity of 1. The South American Crossing SAC cable system includes undersea and terrestrial fiber optic ring network of projectapproximately 12, route miles 20, km. The new SAC Colombia spur has a design capacity of 4.

The North System contains four fiber pairs in a collapsed ring configuration with ten wavelengths per fiber pair resulting in a total capacity of 20, MIUs for operation and 20, MIUs for protection, the cable station at Hollywood, Florida, an appropriate share of the cable station at St. Croix, USVI, and the system interfaces. These four fiber pairs was initially configured as two independent bi-directional rings, each consisting of two fiber pairs directly interconnecting St.

The South Ring System contains four fiber pairs in a collapsed ring configuration with eight wavelengths per fiber pair resulting in a total capacity of 16, MIUs for operation and 16, MIUs for protection, the cable station at Fortaleza, Brazil, an appropriate share of the cable station at St. Croix, USVI, the Branch cable stations or an appropriate share of those cable stations, and the system interfaces.

These four fiber pairs was initially configured as two independent bi-directional rings, each consisting of two fiber pairs. The West System contains four fiber pairs interconnecting St. Croix, USVI and Puerto Rico, with only two fiber pairs initially equipped with four wavelengths each, in a bi-directional collapsed ring configuration, resulting in a total capacity of 4, MIUs for operation and 4, MIUs for protection including the cable station at Puerto Rico , an appropriate share of the cable station at St.

Segment S includes the whole of the submarine cable and associated equipment. Segment T includes all of the cable stations and related equipment. The MAYA-1 cable system deploys an interconnected collapsed ring configuration that contains two fiber pairs with five branching units connecting to the landing points.

Segment S consists of two fiber optic pairs initially operating at 2. SurNet, Inc, and eighteen 18 international carriers, including:. The ARCOS-1 cable system has twelve 12 fiber pairs on repeaterless segments and three 3 fiber pairs on repeatered segments, and a current end of life capacity of 8. Finally in , the U. The cable landing station in Cuba and the duct cable land route from the beach manhole to the Cojimar, Cuba cable landing station is owned by Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.

Neither CNL nor its subsidiaries are, or will become, a licensed telecommunications carrier in Cuba. There are an existing cable between Florida and the U. According to the U. On the continental U. Territorial Sea 12 nm and Contiguous Zone 24 nm , with the majority of the cable system passing through a combination of the U.

Currently, GTMO-1 cable system is the first submarine cable directly connecting the United States and Cuba, but it is not served for commerical use. The ALBA-1 cable system is currenlty the only one commerical international cable system connecting Cuba to the world. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not available for commercial use. The South America-1 Cable Network SAm-1 is a nearly 25, km subsea fiber-optic cable ring surrounding Latin America, including 22, km of submarine cable and 3, km of terrestrial links across Argentina, Chile and Guatemala.

The SAm-1 cable system consists of four fiber pairs , initially designed with a self-healing ring architecture, capable of carrying 48x10 Gbps each and a system capacity of 1.

The SAm-1 was ready for service in March The SAm-1 cable system has been upgraded to support Gbps wavelength, with a system capacity of 20Tbps since Caribbean Express CX is a new build submarine cable system that is being developed by Ocean Networks. The CX cable system will be the only system in the Caribbean region that can offer full fiber pairs to the market.

The Firmina subsea cable is the longest cable in the world capable of running entirely from a single power source at one end of the cable if its other power source s become temporarily unavailable—a resilience boost at a time when reliable connectivity is more important than ever. The French Guiana leg to Trinidad is 1, km long.

Deep Blue One has five branching units, with two to eight fibre pairs in each segment, offering a minimum of 12Tbps capacity per fibre pair. Deep Blue One cable is routed to be able to connect the many offshore oil and gas rigs and the build will include new cable landings in Trinidad, Tobago — with a new route between Trinidad and Tobago — and Suriname.

Orange acts as landing party in Cayenne for the French Guiana branch and operates the Cable landing station on behalf of Digicel while its subsidiary Orange Marine will be in charge of laying the cable. This new system offers a secure and adaptive solution in the region to respond to increasing broadband customer requirements. Deep Blue One cable project is expected to complete in early , with cable installation beginning in mid SABR is set for commercial launch in The WACS consists of four fibre pairs.

It was initially designed with wavelengths per fiber pair, running at 10 Gbps per wavelength, and initial design capacity of 5. MainOne began the construction project in February and launched for commercial service in Equiano cable system is the third private international cable owned by Google and the 14th subsea cable invested by Google.

Equiano connects Portugal and South Africa, running along the West Coast of Africa, with branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African countries. The first branch is expected to land in Nigeria.

Named for Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy, the Equiano cable is state-of-the-art infrastructure based on space-division multiplexing SDM technology, with approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region. Equiano will be the first subsea cable to incorporate optical switching at the fiber-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching.

A contract to build the Equiano cable with Alcatel Submarine Networks was signed in Q4 , and the first phase of the project, connecting South Africa with Portugal, is expected to be completed in There is no announcement on the cable length and system capacity of Equiano yet, assuming more than km and Tbps respectively.

Simba is a multi-stage subsea cable project led by Facebook. Its goal is to connect the entire continent of Africa to the internet, increasing accessibility while also driving down bandwidth prices significantly, which could make it easier to sign up new users. And it could be a major disruption to the current service provider model. In May , Facebook announced its partnership with leading African and global operators to build 2Africa submarine cable system.

It means Simba cable system has been rebranded as 2Africa. The South Atlantic Telecommunications cable no. The SAT-3 cable system has a toltal capacity of Gbps, ready for service in There are also Asian shareholders.

Two landlocked countries, Mali and Niger, connect to the ACE cable system through terrestrial network extensions. The ACE cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with an intial design capacity of 5. On June 1st, , the ACE cable system extension to South Africa was ready for service, increasing design capacity of the entire system to 20Tbps.

Globacom activated the Glo-1 cable system for service in October The Ceiba-2 Submarine Cable Systemednesday is a km submarine cable connecting Malabo and Bata in Equatorial Guinea, with a branching unit to Kribi in Cameroon, with a design capacity of 8 Tbps , in operation since March The construction of Ceiba-2 started in October and was completed in March , equipped with an initial 40 Gbps lambda system and is scalable to a Gbps lambda system to meet future demand.

The Ceiba-2 cable system allows the ACE submarine cable to be interconnected with Cameroon, since the Ceiba-2 and ACE submarine stations in Bata are located next to each other and are interconnected with direct fiber optics. Relying on Cape Verde's existing resources of international cables to Europe, South America and other regions, the delivery of the SHARE cable system will introduce new international bandwidth routes to the African continent, greatly improving the total international export bandwidth of Senegal and other regions of West Africa.

The Ceiba-1 cable system consists of 4 fiber pairs, with system capacity more than 1Tbps, supplied by ASN, ready for service in June Crosslake Fibre's Lake Ontario submarine fibre-optic cable is the first of its kind, a high fibre count cores cable connecting US to Canada via Lake Ontario.

This is an important cable system for financial firms, enterprises and carriers, as it offers secure, low latency routes and high capacity options into the US. Crosslake Fibre's Lake Ontario submarine cable spans km from Toronto to Buffalo, with a 58km submarine segment.

Crosslake Fibre was entered commercial service on October 22, The Topolobambo — La Paz submarine cable system is a km unrepeatered submarine cable system with 24 fiber pairs. The cable system is supplied by Huawei Marine. These systems carry traffic among the continents and islands bordering the Atlantic basin - North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.

Confluence Networks has contracted with: a WSP and its subsidiary Ecology and Environment to pursue the requisite permits across various state, municipal, port entities such as state departments of environmental protection, b Law firm Morgan Lewis in Washington DC to perform their services at the federal agency level for permitting, and c SubCom to carry out the desktop survey.

The WALL-LI cable system provides a physically diverse, lower latency route between cable landing stations in Long Island and New Jersey, and a Manhattan bypass route to avoid network congestion and weather-related threats in the region. The GigNet-1 cable system is a 1, kilometers advanced subsea fiber optic cable system connecting Florida, the United States and Cancun, Mexico.

Xtera was selected to serve as the primary EPC contractor for the GigNet-1 cable project, to provide the subsea wetplant consisting of the fiber and amplifiers repeaters , the submarine line terminals in Florida and Mexico, and manage the installation. The SednaLink cable system is a 1, kilometres domestic submarine cable system in Canada, from Sheshatsui to Iqaluit with two branches serving Nunatsiavut communities. Submarine Networks World Overview Management.

The integrity of SLTE patching and the manhole splice should be verified. The data networking elements of the landing station must also be vetted, along with the fiber backhaul. As with a purely land-based network, latency, throughput, jitter, and frame loss are potential test metrics to assess performance. The time associated with protection switch service disruptions should also be evaluated. With so much worldwide data now traveling through these networks, their importance to global communication, commerce, and security cannot be overstated.

This can be traced to the earliest history of these networks when British domination of this industry engendered military, commercial, and political advantages. Suppose your customer-facing website is slow because of poor network performance. Potential customers lose patience with the site and decide not to buy your products or services.

Submarine cable ownership today by individual governments has given way to consortiums of multiple telecom carriers who build, monitor, and maintain these huge networks. In recent years, many Internet Content Providers ICP and data center owner and operators have also entered the fray of submarine cable ownership to ensure their own interests in this valued commodity.

The range of uses for undersea cable knows no boundaries. With international internet and phone communication relying so heavily on these networks, almost any business, government, or individual who owns a computer is a daily user. To meet this growing demand, submarine internet cable bandwidth continues to increase. In , the first undersea telegraph cable was built between England and France. Since modern insulating materials did not yet exist, substances like India rubber and Gutta-percha were used to protect the copper wires, often unsuccessfully.

Most early networks were owned by the British and the available science of that era severely limited bandwidth. The popularity and widespread adoption of these services spawned additional amplifier and repeater development to increase the efficacy of these early networks. Originating in the s, internet cabling has supplanted the legacy coaxial submarine phone cable networks with TAT-8 , the first submarine optic cable laid across the Atlantic ocean. It was installed in Despite these advancements in construction and actual submarine network build and deployment, they are still vulnerable.

The ever-present hazards presented by fishing equipment, anchors, and shifting currents have continued from the first submarine networks through the present day and can diminish the data capacity of a submarine network or even render it inoperative altogether.

Submarine cabling is not a new concept. While this was revolutionary at the time, the first non-test message that was sent was a letter message that took 17 hours and 40 minutes to be delivered across the Atlantic ocean. However, since those times, the technology and techniques used have drastically changed and improved for the better. Varying in size, the cables are equipped to withhold any environmental elements which may be present within the sea, as well as the depth of water in which they are situated.

Historically, submarine cables took approximately four years to install, lasting only one month before breaking down due to the harsh conditions. First constructed from a telegraph line, submarine cables have progressed to telephone and coaxial lines, with all modern submarine cabling using fiber optics.

Today, fiber-optic technology uses lasers that send rapid waves down through thin glass fibers optical fibers to the other end of the cable. The filaments fibers are protected by layers of insulation as they are as thin as a strand of human hair.

The cables that are laid within shallow water are much stronger and thicker than those located deeper within the ocean as they have to withhold tougher conditions. There are three main ways to transmit data signals across large spans of land phone cable, coaxial cable, and fiber optic cables which either send data through the air or through the sea.

The demand for internet and cloud computing is expanding and the need for faster, more reliable service is here. It is expected that The submarine network is the most reliable and cost-effective solution in keeping up with such demand with submarine internet cable bandwidth continually increasing. While submarine cabling is a slow and expensive project, it is still the cheaper and faster alternative to satellites.

Although both options are still susceptible to vulnerability and damage, it is far less likely for subsea cables to suffer from threatening damage. A single cable can carry tens of terabytes of information per second where satellites fall short, being able to only carry approximately one terabyte per second.

The range of VIAVI testing and monitoring tools are designed specifically to handle all aspects of the submarine cable network and subsea cable services, from the building stage right through to activation and monitoring. The submarine network typically poses unique obstacles due to the environment and conditions that the cables are situated within which is why it is critical to be equipped with the right instruments. Each element plays a crucial role in protecting and delivering the data throughout the network system.

Reliance on global high-speed telecommunications is higher than ever before. From urgent financial transactions to endless video live-streaming, undersea cables support numerous aspects of our modern lifestyle that we may not be aware of, making it one of the backbones of the global economy. As of , there are over 1. Various sectors, including the international banking industry, commercial trade, defense data, and daily internet usage, relies on this critical infrastructure.

Concerningly, the integrity of this vital global communication is significantly at risk from accidental and deliberate damages. As 5G and other technologies transform our societies into highly integrated networks, protecting our digital infrastructure - such as undersea fiber-optic cables - becomes more important than ever. Submarine cables are engineered to sustain around years of shelf life.

However they are often retired earlier than that when they start to become economically obsolete. Over that long period of time, the environment takes its toll on the cable. Shifting tides, erosions, storms, and saltwater intrusion are all potential disruptors of data flow.

These damages coming from the environment often cause a variety of issues, starting from minor outages and lowered speeds to a full loss of connectivity. Not surprisingly, the larger and more significant physical threats are man-made, coming from accidents due to fishing vessels and dragged anchors. This accident occurs when fishing boats and large ships are dragging their anchors outside the designated anchoring areas, thus hitting subsea cables. They are also useful for distributing content from one source to multiple locations.

Cables can carry far more data at far less cost than satellites. Statistics released by U. Federal Communications Commission indicate that satellites account for just 0. When using your mobile phone, the signal is only carried wirelessly from your phone to the nearest cell tower. From there, the data will be carried over terrestrial and subsea fiber-optic cables.

Both of these companies are investing in these projects primarily as a way to bring internet access to less developed parts of the world where there is little or no access to the global internet. They are not looking to use satellites or drones as a way to offset their usage of submarine cables at this time. Both Facebook and Google are continuing to build new submarine cables, such as the Havfrue cable in which they are both investors.

Accidents like fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors account for two-thirds of all cable faults. Environmental factors like earthquakes also contribute to damage. Less commonly, underwater components can fail. Deliberate sabotage and shark bites are exceedingly rare. This is probably one of the biggest myths that we see cited in the press. According to data from the International Submarine Cable Protection Committee fish bites a category that includes sharks accounted for zero cable faults between and The majority of damage to submarine cables comes from human activity, primarily fishing and anchoring, not sharks.

Cables are engineered with a minimum design life of 25 years, but there is nothing magical about this time span. When a cable is retired it could remain inactive on the ocean floor. Increasingly, there are companies that are gaining the rights to cables, pulling them up, and salvaging them for raw materials.

In some cases, retired cables are repositioned along other routes. To accomplish this task, ships recover the retired cable and then re-lay it along a new path. New terminal equipment is deployed at the landings stations. This approach can sometimes be a cost-effective method for countries with small capacity requirements and limited budgets.

Our interactive submarinecablemap. We track both the lit and potential capacity of cables along with information about the number of fiber pairs on various segments of cables as part of our Global Bandwidth Research Service. This capacity information is only available as part of our subscription-based research services because of the considerable effort necessary to update these metrics every year.

The cables routes on our map are stylized and do not reflect the actual path taken by the various systems. This design approach makes it easy to visually follow the different cables and the points at which they land. In real life, cables that cross similar areas of an ocean, take very similar paths. These paths are chosen via comprehensive marine surveys which select routes that avoid hazardous conditions that could potentially damage a cable.

We're glad you asked. Click on any cable to reveal its landing points, or click on a landing point to reveal submarine cables connected to that location. Additional information about a system will be shown on the right panel. If a landing station is connected by multiple systems, a list of those systems will be displayed. Clicking on an empty space returns the map to its original state, showing all submarine cable systems currently on our map.