Submarine Cable Systems Face New Challenges
A Team Telecom rejection of an international submarine cable system landing location comes late in the planning process and would send an applicant back to "square one," SubCom Managing Director-Sales David Robles told an FCBA CLE Monday. Finding a new…
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landing location would require complex planning and negotiations, including re-engineering a submarine network and adjusting the needed length of fiber cable, he said to our Q&A: "It has huge implications for the cable system." The FCC opened a comment cycle Monday on Team Telecom recommendations on a submarine cable landing location application (see 2006220029). Scott Shefferman,Verizon senior managing associate general counsel-international legal, called such uncertainty a top challenge, along with overall uncertainty in changing executive branch review regulations (see 2006170055) and recent changes in FCC submarine cable outage requirements (see 1912270049). Katie Bristow Myers, senior attorney for Microsoft's Azure Networking, said national security changes at Team Telecom, plus broader cybersecurity threats, are among her top worries. She's concerned how quickly the company, a so-called hyperscaler, can replace the capacity it lit up with COVID-19. "We ate about two years of capacity in two months," she said, and that requires new plant construction, though she's pleased to see how stable networks in the U.S. have remained. Recently, traditional competitors banded together to build international submarine cable systems, she said. Ulises Pin of Morgan Lewis said the economic downturn could slow availability of securities financing long-term projects. Verizon's Shefferman said governance and maintenance agreements must last 25 to 30 years and should be written to survive any party's bankruptcy. Kent Bressie of Harris Wiltshire said the submarine cable industry must continue to educate governments, and protecting submarine cables requires support from fishermen. As climate change affects how and where fishing vessels operate, cables on the ocean floor face new risks, he said. Wind energy deployment can interfere with submarine cable systems without proper interindustry coordination, said Catherine Creese, director-Naval Seafloor Cable Protection Office, Naval Facilities Engineering Command.