While many subsea cable stories recently are about accidents and repairs in the world’s oceans, two recent stories from India and West Africa are land-based and underline some of the potential pitfalls of inadequate planning.
In India, according to news resource the Economic Times, the subsea cable industry has called on the government to decongest the landing station at Versova in Mumbai, where 15 of India’s 17 international cables land in what is only a six-kilometre stretch.
In recommendations to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the industry, through lobby body Broadband India Forum (BIF), says that the concentration at Versova creates a heavy risk of cuts and failures; indeed faults are said to be happening as often as monthly.
The industry is also calling for a dedicated indigenous vessel to repair the cables. The two service providers – E-marine and SEAICOMA – apparently have repair times averaging between three months and five months.
Meanwhile subsea cable growth, along with data demand, is unlikely to slow down any time soon.
There’s a slightly more bizarre planning issue in Liberia where regulator the Liberia Telecommunications Authority, state-owed service provider Libtelco and the Cable Consortium of Liberia (CCL) are rerouting the country’s only fibre optic cable, the ACE cable, which first landed in Liberia in 2011. That’s because a monument is being built on the landing point of the ACE cable, which happens to be in the recently opened PHP Community Park in Monrovia.
The cable is now inaccessible from the initial landing point, so it has to be rerouted for the pending repair works.
The rerouting process won’t be easy or cheap but will, it is hoped, offer a clear line of access to the cable without future obstructions. A ship bringing in technicians will arrive in Liberia on 22 April to begin the repair process on the cable.
As for how the ACE cable ended up in this situation, apparently the contractor that built the PHP Park did not consider the advice of the CCL not to build the monument at the park on the cable landing point.
- Vaughan O’Grady
