Three Telecommunications Forecasts

1. Carriers begin small scale long haul hollow core fibre deployments in the next two years. Deployments balloon by 2030. The driving force is a one third reduction in round trip latency. This makes it attractive for Internet backbones and Tier 2 ISPs. Hollow core fibre can use a much broader range of infrared spectrum leading to a doubling of bandwidth. 

Microsoft has already deployed its hollow core product (Lumensity subsidiary) not only in Azure data centers, but between them. Hybrid cables containing both Lumensity hollow core and standard single mode fibre have been deployed between European Azure data centers. Route miles deployed and carrying live traffic totals 1280 kilometers. See for full details: https://lnkd.in/dKhc4ANj. 

2. The Saudis have an opportunity to dethrone Egypt as the Middle East gateway to Europe, but it requires they sharply drop pricing on their long haul routes.  The Israelis can also participate if they stop the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza strip. 

3. An end-to-end cable connecting Lisbon to Singapore via the Cape of Good Hope will be announced in the next five years. It provides the ultimate in physical diversity and resiliency. Currently this path is too expensive because several cables must be stitched together to form an end-to-end path. A single cable could offer prices competitive with SMW6 and AAE2 and become the protect path for cables traversing either the Red Sea or the Saudi Arabian desert. Moreover, there is a lot of intra-African traffic and 2Africa is simply insufficient at this point.