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Seen in dry dock, The Innovator is a DPS-2 classed cable lay and multi-purpose offshore support vessel
In some parts of the ocean there is a veritable cable congestion and operators cannot just drop new cables where they please
24 FIBRE SYSTEMS Issue 1 • Autumn 2013
between GMS and Huawei Telecom, has recently introduced titanium as material for their six fibre-pair repeater. Traditionally, these amplifiers are made from coated steel or an alloy of beryllium and copper, materials known to be hazardous for marine ecosystems. In contrast, titanium ‘is naturally very inert and doesn’t react with the water or subsea environment, so it is more benign for the fauna and flora of the sea,’ says Nigel Bailiff, chief executive of Huawei Marine Networks. ‘Also, it is around half the weight of steel for the same strength, [and thus it can have] thinner walls, which actually helps with the thermal efficiency.’ Te firm aims to deploy the new repeaters on a commercial project off the coast of western Africa in late 2014. Repeaters have also become much more
powerful recently, which helps to reduce the number needed on a cable network – and the distortions they cause. ‘In the past, you needed to have your repeater every 30 to 40km, and now for a cable between New York and London it is every 75 to 80km,’ says Eric Handa, an
analyst with AP Telecom, a consultancy firm. Tis increase in the power of repeaters is now ‘the main driver in a lot of the new technologies that have been deployed’, he says. Te rising demand for subsea cable
communications is posing new challenges to the cable-laying companies in terms of finding the best route to connect two points on the globe. In some parts of the ocean, there now is a veritable cable congestion, and operators cannot just drop new cables where they please. To minimise the risk of crossing other cables, they have to resort to new technologies.
Mapping a route
In the past, cable operators researched the different sources of risk to integrity and continuing operation of their cable, and then engineered a route that tried to avoid them. However, ‘one of the things that’s becoming more requested is reduced latency’ of the signal going through the cable, says Stuart Wilson, route engineering manager at GMS. ‘Te cables, as they are at the moment, are
Global Marine Systems
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