Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

This article illustrates the challenges in laying fibre optic subsea cables. Zayo found 3 unexploded bombs in British territorial waters and one on the Dutch side during its Zeus cable build across the English Channel. I guess the Netherlands is doing better than Brexit UK because the Dutch navy removed the bomb while Zayo was required to hire private third parties to remove the other 3. 😀 There were also over 350 potential archeological sites that had to be examined prior to the cable run. Zayo viewed building Zeus as a necessity given the advanced age of the North Circe cable (22 years now) and the fact it was tapped out. This has been my point as well. These English Channel cables are approach life's end either due to optical loss accumulating from many repairs or simple technological obsolescence. However, the article's writer goes a little overboard in claiming that a ship anchor would bounce off Zeus' double armored cable. I am highly confident it would go right thr

Common Ownership of Data Centers and Subsea Cables V.tal is a South American data center company that is working closely with the South American cable, Globenet, which connects New York to Brazil. An infrastructure fund owns both companies. The Globenet system is heavily used for low latency trading as it has one of the shortest paths to Fortaleza, Brazil. From Fortaleza the low latency trading networks that serve the financial industry (high frequency traders) go overland to the Brazilian stock exchange data center, B3, which is in within spitting distance of the Equinix SP4 facility.  There is a growing trend for new data center companies to become involved in building or affiliated with subsea cables. This ensures that their new, often remote data centers have big bandwidth pipes into them. It is a tricky balance because a new high capacity cable cannot be successful just by connecting new, largely empty data centers. It is important for the cable to divide itself into several back

1. The last 2Africa splice should happen in December and the cable is likely to be fully live April, 2025. Not surprising given this is the most complicated submarine cable project ever undertaken with over 40 landings and many new cable landing stations. Right now only the Kenya to South Africa segment is live.  2. Blue-Raman is farther out than many Blue-Raman providers are willing to admit. Not 2nd quarter next year. But year's end for the all-important Marseille/Mumbai segment. Don't be fooled. Salesmen are Liars. 😀 Except for me, of course. 😊 3. I can sell you 5x 100Gs on any of the three Equiano segments today and three months down the road will have 25x 100Gs available on the Equiano cable. Plus I have affordable local loops from Lagos OADC to the other two key Lagos data centers. Moreover, the metro fibre is amplified which is important for ensuring acceptable 400G and 800G wave performance. Most Lagos 

Advice For Buyers Very little SWM5 and AAE1 capacity on the key Marseille/Singapore route. Moreover, the Peace Cable is still 4 months away, and SWM6 at least 6 months out. Blue-Raman's Marseille/Mumbai segment is scheduled to go live November, 2025.  Plenty of Equiano capacity   so now is the time to grab it over the next 6 months. I know several vendors holding 500Gs to multiple terabits ready to cut a deal.  European wavelengths have never been cheaper. It is now possible to build a basic 100G European backbone that includes 10x 100G waves for 10K Euros or less per month. So now is the time for African ISPs to expand their networks into Europe to peer and buy better transit. I have intimate knowledge of pricing, latency, resiliency, and physical diversity options across the major long haul European providers. My expertise will save a lot of time as well as avoid costly mistakes.  The badass 240 terabit per second Firmina cable is coming to South America and it will crash prices

 ***Well informed sources tell me that Blue-Raman is unlikely to go live before November 2025. My suspicion is that this is due to the terrestrial fibre builds across the Saudi Arabian desert as well as Jordan and Israel.  ***The 2Africa cable consortium controls its cable landing stations. So CLS operators are essentially employees. Not Masters of the Universe like in most previous African projects. 😀 In fact, the consortium financed many of the new 2Africa landing stations. And furthermore, not only are cross connect and back haul charges capped, but there are performance standards imposed on operators in terms of delivering power, space, cross connects, and anything else that affects circuit delivery or performance. Below is the 2Africa cable landing in Nigeria. 

Milano/Palermo;  2,000€.  Milano/Thessaloniki; 7,500€.  Coresite 1 Wilshire/San Jose Equinix; $1,750.  Hawaii DC/Coresite 1 Wilshire; $17,500. LS1 Lisbon/MDXI Equinix Lagos; $25,000.  CT2 Capetown South Africa/JB2 Johannesburg; Route Protected ; $8,500.  Valencia, Spain/Madrid Interxion 2; 1,250€.  Ashburn Equinix/Telehouse 2 Paris; Dunant Cable ; $6,250.  HK/Singapore; AAG  cable ; $13,500.  TY4 Tokyo/Coresite 1 Wilshire; Unity Cable ; $18,500.  

Academic studies generally suggest that ships cause anywhere from a plurality to a majority of subsea cable outages. The percentage varies over time due to natural variability. The number one villain among fishing boats are the bottom trawlers. Their nets scoop up fish and shellfish on the sea floor generally in shallow waters where sea life is more abundant due to higher oxygen and nutrient levels (plankton need light). It is in the range from 100 to 200 meters below sea level that trawlers cause the most damage.  Frequently the otter boards that support the nets dig deep into the sediment cutting or damaging subsea cables. See the diagram below.  The general consensus is that over the last 40 years fishing's relative contribution to subsea outages has been falling. This reflects depleted open sea  fisheries (fish farming has largely replaced them) as well as deeper cable burial and more emphasis on prevention. Another reason is the rise in global shipping as exports grow relative