Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

TAT-1 was the first Trans-Atlantic cable intended to carry voice traffic. Up to that point the only telephony across the ocean was short wave radio. These first generation vacuum tubes regenerated the electrical signals used for communication. These vacuum tubes could only regenerate in one direction. Hence TAT-1 was a two cable system. The vacuum tubes were amazingly reliable with none of the 51 repeaters on each of the two cables comprising TAT-1 failing during its long operational life span. The cable introduced two other innovations, namely polyethylene to protect the cable and a coaxial cable design. Polyethylene replaced gutta-perch, a tree rubber product.  

Let's be clear. LEO satellite service is an unproven business model. Obviously, if prices are high enough or the service is a monopoly, it will work. But no complete financial picture is public at this point. This is why the planned 2026 IPO is so interesting. The prospectus will reveal enough to make an informed judgment. But despite stubborn optimism to the contrary, there is no strong evidence that LEO Internet is highly profitable. I doubt even Starlink investors have the company's complete financial details except for a few high profile venture capitalists. Starlink does release an annual report. It is best characterized as a slick marketing pitch designed to give the impression that Starlink is an unstoppable juggernaut that reflects historical inevitability. All Bow to Caesar. What are the missing details? 1. Depreciation. 2. Customer acquisition costs. 3. Operating expenses. 4. Capital replacement costs. Depreciation is important because LEOs are like...

EXA now owns the Aqua Comm assets. These include fibre pairs on AEC-1, AEC-2, and Amitié. EXA also acquired two Irish Sea cables as part of the purchase. EXA managment emphasizes customer choice in their justification of the deal, but I think what makes it a good deal for EXA is price. It picked up lots of fibre pairs for a total price of around $40 million. Now subsea fibre IRU purchases often range from $30 million to $60 million per pair on life of system term deals. So this is a great distressed purchase. In the same ballpark as Columbia Venture's purchase of the 360 Networks for $25 million, which was rebranded as Hibernia Atlantic. I think the main question I would have for EXA's operational staff is whether they can generate cost savings. Operational synergies are important to judging the success of an acquisition. This is where companies often fail in their consolidation efforts. GTT went bankrupt in 2021 after rapidly buying lots of network assets including Interoute, ...

The British empire had largely completed its Red Line cable network by 1902. This network allowed news and messages to be delivered in a few minutes or several hours at most depending on the message queue's length. It spanned the globe and formed a network ring so traffic could be routed in the opposite direction in case of disruption. It was, as Dr. Michael Delaunay has argued, a highly resilient network. Besides the ring configuration, the network relied on multiple cables between any pair of given end points to ensure uptime. The British military believed it would be impossible for an enemy to cut enough cables on any route to sever all communications between any given pair of end points. The Committee of Imperial Defense concluded that 57 cables must be shut down to isolate the British Isles from the Red Line network. The figure was 15 for Canada and 7 for South Africa. The Empire was self sufficient in terms of manufacturing the components for a subsea telegraph cable and re...

Few details are available at this point. It has been clear to me for some time that the 2Africa and Equiano networks are insufficient to meet growing African Internet traffic. This reflects two factors. First, the limited number of Equiano landings: Togo, Nigeria, Namibia, and South Africa. Secondly, the 2Africa has only 180 Tbps of capacity, but serves 17 African states. Moreover, it also serves many Middle East countries, Pakistan, and India. The Nigerian government is concerned that the country lacks subsea resiliency. Published reports hint at its desire for a new route, but it is not obvious what it would be. One possibility is a direct US-Nigeria link perhaps connecting Atlanta or Ashburn Equinix to Lagos. Or perhaps a Nigeria to France or Spain direct link. Bloomberg article on subject: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/nigeria-in-advanced-talks-with-google-for-new-undersea-cable. 

 At an Irish Peering event in late 2025, Geoff Bennett, Director of Solutions and Technology at Nokia, gave a presentation on the development of spatial division multiplexing. We will do a slide-by-slide exposition of his presentation. ***Geoff's estimate is that there are 570 operational fibre optic cables world wide. This makes sense given the large number of islands with subsea cables. In fact, given the efforts of the EU to extend cable to the many islands of its member states, these figures should steadily rise. Google is also ramping cable connectivity to Pacific and Indian island clusters, including Christmas Island, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, etc. ***Geoff notes that 81 cables are in planning or deployment stage. ***It is almost obligatory these days to note that these cables make possible over $10 trillion in daily global transactions, driven by financial flows and international trade.