Subsea Cables Confronting Greater Seabed Congestion: TeleGeography
Subsea cables face a growing challenge of finding space on the seafloor for new systems while still ensuring the safety and reliability of existing infrastructure, TeleGeography's Greg Bryan wrote Thursday. The International Cable Protection Committee recommends that new cables are…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
separated from parallel existing cables by a distance of three times the water depth as protection from the grapnel hooks used to recover cables from the ocean bed, Bryan said. But that separation requirement becomes a problem in deep waters, and when dozens of cables cross the same region, "the mathematical reality quickly eliminates available routing options." Compounding the problem is a lack of information sharing in the subsea cable industry, Bryan added, suggesting that better data sharing could be achieved through nondisclosure agreements and coordinated working groups.