1. ITU Workshop Submarine Cables for Ocean/Climate Monitoring & Disaster Warning The Technology – An Operations Perspective Mr. Michael Costin Executive Committee Member International Cable Protection Committee Rome - 9 September 2011

2. International Cable Protection Committee?
ICPC is an industry body comprising submarine cable owners/operators, system manufacturers, service providers and government stakeholders.
ICPC supports its members with environmental, legal and technical information and advice
ICPC current prime activities are in:
Developing best practice advice
Promoting awareness of submarine cables as critical infrastructure
Monitoring the evolution of international treaties and national legislation to protect submarine cable interests

3. The Challenge of Change
Rapid development of offshore renewable energy
Increased incidence of damage caused by shipping
Seabed becoming crowded in some areas
Need to maintain harmony with other seabed users
Need to ensure harmony with seabed environment
Need to improve security of submarine cables
Increased regulation of coastal and high seas

4. Typical Submarine Cable System
Network
Management System
Armoured
Cable
Terminal Equipment
Lightweight Cable
Repeater
Cable
Station
Source: U.K. Cable Protection Committee & Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks

5. Submarine Cable Network
Global submarine cable network comprises hundreds of commercial, independently owned, domestic and international systems
International systems can cost up to several hundred million Euros to build.
Project development/build takes 2-4 years
International consortium formation and funding focussed upon commercial risks.
International project development concerned for regulatory and permitting issues

6. Submarine Cable Build
Cable operators focus upon routing cables for the:
Safest route to avoid areas of natural (undersea volcanoes) and man-made (designated anchorage and trawl zones) hazards and environmental sensitivity
Shortest possible route so as to minimise latency
Cable operators aim to apply the best cable type for each part of the route, having regard for potential threats from fishing and anchors, whilst minimising cost
Bury the cable into the seabed to mitigate potential threats from fishing and anchoring. New cables target burial up to 3 metres subject to the assessed threat level.

7. Threats From External Aggression
Fishing – high incidence but impact restricted to individual cables
Anchors – medium but increasing incidence that can impact several cables
Natural Hazards (e.g. earthquakes) – low incidence but can impact multiple cables 80 60 40 20 %
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Fishing
Anchors
Cable faults caused by external aggression demonstrate the impact of human activities
Base data provided by Tyco Telecommunications & Global Marine Systems
Published in Wood & Carter (2008) IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering

8. Modified from Source: Anderson M., U. Arizona Geosciences
Hengchun 2006: An Earthquake that Caused Major Disruption to the Cable Network
(Source: Prof. Lionel Carter, ICPC Marine Environmental Advisor)
Earthquake triggered submarine landslides near the junction of 2 tectonic plates.
Eurasian Plate
Philippine
Plate
80 mm/yr
China
Okinawa
Trough
Landslides caused turbidity current that flowed over 330 km & broke 9 cables in sequence.
Chinese
Taipei
Ryuku Trench
From the timing of breaks, the average speed of the turbidity current was ~20km/hr.
Damage occurred in water depths to 4000m - some cables covered with mud from current.
Cable repairs involved 11 ships & took 49 days.
Modified from Source: Anderson M., U. Arizona Geosciences

9. Submarine Cable Operation
Submarine cable system threats can result in a complete cable breakage or a “shunt” fault of the cable’s conductor used for powering repeaters.
Restoration of traffic when a cable breaks or for repair of a shunt fault can take days
Multiple cable breaks can have an impact of several weeks, even several months

10. Submarine Cable Maintenance
Cable repair works typically take 7-10 days to complete, but the actual duration of a cable outage will be affected by:
Location of fault relative to the repair vessel
Type of fault (i.e. Shunt or complete break)
Securing any requisite permits/clearances, which can take up to several weeks
Weather conditions
Cable outages can take months to clear.

11. Multi-Purpose Submarine Cables
Some power-telecommunications cables
Issue of primary/priority purpose of cable
Cable operators do not repair/replace repeaters with faulted components if the overall system performance is maintained.
If a fault arises with the plant/equipment for the secondary purpose, what priority will its repair have?

12. Sharing the seabed in harmony
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