Undersea fiber-optic cable and investment to increase

Nov. 1, 1998

2 min read

In 1997, 45,000 route-km of undersea fiber-optic cable was added to the existing 312,000 route-km, says KMI Corp. (Newport, RI) in its 1998 Worldwide Summary of Fiber-Optic Undersea Systems report. By year`s end, another 89,000 will be added. If all those previously installed cables are still operating, more than 900,000 route-km will be in operation by 2002.

The increasing need for capacity fuels demand for higher-bit-rate data circuits, leading to deployment of time-division multiplexing and dense wavelength-division multiplexing. Because of the shift from point-to-point systems to ring networks that encompass entire regions, undersea topologies are becoming similar to terrestrial systems.

CTR Group Ltd.`s Project Oxygen and the four regional systems proposed by Global Crossing have been at the forefront of this change. Depending on whether the capacity of each multi-link system or individual links are measured, the voice capacity will more than triple from 20 million voice circuits to 70 million or grow to 800 million by 2003.

These networks demand new infrastructures for cable repair and maintenance, landing terminals, and terrestrial communications links.

The largest volume of fiber-optic cable deployed through 1997 was in the Atlantic region. Most of the route-km deployed from 1998 to 2003 are planned for the Pacific region and inter-regional systems--more than 70% of the total cable installed.

Investment in these systems will grow to $51 billion through 2003, a $31 billion increase from 1997`s $20 billion. The majority will also be in the Pacific and inter-regional systems.

For more information or to order the report, call (800) 343-4035; fax (401) 849-6771; or email [email protected]. u