The current submarine cable construction boom will continue for the next several years, according to a recent report from Information Gatekeepers Inc. (IGI). Growing bandwidth demand across both the Atlantic and Pacific – and particularly the latter – driven by the requirements of cloud computing and information content providers such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft should keep the current momentum going, the market research firm says in “US Submarine Cables – a Review and Forecast,” written by Clif Holiday of B & C Consulting Services.
As of early 2017, there were more than 420 submarine cable systems in service globally, carrying well over 95% of international traffic, writes Holiday in the IGI report. However, that number isn’t enough to keep pace with expected requirements, Holiday states. For example, he projects that international traffic coming into and out of the United States is expected to grow from approximately 3.5 kiloterabytes/month this year to nearly 6 kiloterabytes/month by 2023. Nearly half of this traffic will run between the U.S. and Asia by 2023, he adds, leading to a prediction of additional submarine cable systems between the U.S. and Asia during the forecast period. Traffic between the U.S. and Europe as well as to Latin America also will grow, although not as rapidly, and lead to interest in additional submarine cables to those areas as well.
The demands of the internet in general and cloud computing operators in particular will drive much of this traffic growth, says the IGI report. Overall, Holiday expects undersea network system deployments to maintain at least their current pace of 100,000 miles per year for the next several years.
“US Submarine Cables – a Review and Forecast,” details the components of submarine cable systems, including the cables, the landing equipment, the repeaters, the equalizers, and the branching units. It offers a detailed list of vendors of both cables and landing equipment as well as a review of the drivers for new system construction. It offers an overall forecast for the market as well.
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