Cable Map

If you have been following this blog, you know that I am interested in gathering information about undersea cables (especially costs and capacities). Some sites, like Thus, I found this site interesting, as it contains a comprehensive, clickable map. The sidebar contains links to each cable's home page, so it would be relatively straight-forward to gather comprehensive cable data.

Also, if you're interested, I found this article over at Amazon that is related.

Singapore-Japan cable system

This article over at Telecommunications Online announced a new cable project, so I collected it here with my other similar announcements. Quoting the article:

Several Asian telcos and Google are to invest US$400million in a new subsea cable linking South East Asia to Japan aimed at providing the highest capacity connection link to-date. The South East Asia Japan Cable System (SJC) has a design capacity of 17 terabits per second with provision to be ramped up to 23 Tbps. As an example of its capacity, the bandwidth allows the SJC submarine cable system to handle 30 million high definition videos simultaneously.

The 8,300 km cable will link Singapore to Japan with branches to Indonesia, Philippines and Hong Kong initially. From Japan, it will be plugged into the recently commissioned trans-Pacific Unity cable to the USA, besides a branching link to Guam which is becoming an alternative cable junction linking Asia to USA.

Comprising 6-fiber pairs, the SJC cable is scheduled to be completed by the second quarter of 2012, and is believed to be modeled after the Unity business concept providing autonomy in operation for partners to the initiative.

The decision to proceed with this landmark project, no doubt, has been prompted by growing demand not only from Internet traffic but also from the surge in telco TV, games and enterprise data.

An earlier report by TeleGeography shows that international Internet traffic has not been affected by the recent economic meltdown. In fact, international traffic growth was up 79 percent in 2009, from 61 percent in 2008.

By end 2009, fixed broadband in the Asia Pacific is expected to grow 17.3 percent to 182 million subscribers clocking billings of US$44.8 billion, according to Frost & Sullivan. The next generation networks in progress in South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia will further fuel growth in fixed broadband, not counting the phenomenal surge in mobile broadband.

So this cable will cost a bit over $48,000 per kilometer. This is the first time I have seen the capacity of the cable described in terms of the number of HD television streams that can be supported; previously, it was always the number of simultaneous telephone calls.

Transatlantic telecom capacity

You might find this item from GigaOm interesting. If this projection is correct, we will almost certainly be paying more for transatlantic capacity.

Cox launching mobile phone network

I found this story over at USA Today interesting. Apparently, Cox, a cable TV operator, has become convinced that better profits can be achieved by building and operating their own mobile network than becoming an MVNO. Either they are being unrealistic about the cost and expertise required to operate a new technology to them in a completely new competitive marketplace, or they have done a sober, realistic assessment and believe that the returns from bundling and close operational coordination are sufficiently high.

p>My guess is the former is true. It will be hard for them to compete with nation-wide, facilities based carriers with established brands. Remote control of entertainment is a relatively new idea (and it may not be bad), for which future returns are quite uncertain. Furthermore, how difficult would it be for someone to develop an app that runs on Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc. that could do essentially the same thing?

Olga Karif over at BusinessWeek is also skeptical, though for different reasons.

New Undersea cable for Google

I have been posting regularly about undersea cables and also about Google's transmission capabilities. This item combines both. As we consider incentives and motivations, why would Google, an information provider, invest in infrastructure the way that they do?

Fiber optic cables and economic shifts

This article from BusinessWeek is interesting. In the article, long time tech industry observer Om Malik, argues that, like roads, an infrastructure of fiber optic cables opens the doors to growth and investment (although it certainly is no guarantee of that). Thomas Friedman lays out this case in more detail in The World is Flat.

So, an important question is, given the relatively poor teledensity of Africa, why would these large investments be made to provide connectivity there?

How to construct an undersea cable

In keeping with one of the themes on this blog, you might find this site interesting. You will find a lot of details on what goes into the construction of an undersea cable, along with photos and a detailed progress chart.

Photo essay on laying undersea cable

You might find this item over at CNET interesting. It is a photo essay on how undersea cables are laid.

Google and others to build submarine cable

I found this item interesting, in light of the ongoing posts on submarine cables and in light of Google's emerging business model. Quoting the article:

Google and the five telecoms companies said in joint statement that the 10,000 km (6,200 mile) undersea fiber optic cable, connecting the United States to Japan, will cost $300 million.

Google's partners in the consortium, dubbed Unity, comprises Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corp, Pacnet, and Singapore Telecommunications.

The cable will provide much-needed capacity to sustain unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States.

The consortium said it has picked NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system, which is expected to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010.

The cost per kilometer of this cable is approximately US$30,000.

What is also interesting to me is that it continues to mark Google's engagement in carriage. Do you view this as a long term contract to assure supply (like one might do in a futures market)? This, by the way, is what Google implied in this statement. Or, do you view this as a part of a continuing effort at Google to build an integrated information utility?

Verizon Obtains FCC Approval for TPE cable landing

While cable landing approvals are not big news -- the are approved fairly routinely, this item is notable because of the capacity it adds between China and the US (1.28 Terabits/sec). Unfortunately cost data is not included in this press release.

Telecom complaints at the FCC

The FCC regularly reports the complaints from consumers that they receive. Here is the latest report. I compiled the summary data into this graph (note that they vertical axis is logarithmic):



There was obviously something going on in January and April that stimulated complaints!

Comcast and the "new" open cable platform

Earlier this week, I wrote about cable's "Tru2way" announcement. So, here is a bit more on this.

Continuing on the theme I began developing late last year, this announcement suggests that cable TV operators are beginning to dis-integrate their networks, separating services from platform. So, will CATV move to an "open" (wholesale) platform on which multiple "retail" services will be provided from multiple providers? Is this another instance of "functional/structural separation"?

Cable TV standardization

Some months ago, I had written this article regarding cable, set top boxes, and standards. So, when Forbes posted this item. According to the article:

Facing pressure from regulators, the cable TV industry plans to make good on a promise to standardize its technology and open the door to televisions and other gadgets that don't need cable boxes to receive video-on-demand programs and other interactive services.

An industry initiative, to be renamed "tru2way" after a decade in the works, is expected to allow electronics manufacturers to make TVs and other gear that will work regardless of cable provider. By making devices compatible, the standard also could encourage the development of new services and features that rely on two-way communication over the cable network.

Note that Engadget and CED are framing this as merely a rebranding of "OpenCable". Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is claiming that there is more to it (from the Forbes article):

Our business model has changed completely, from a closed, proprietary model to an open architecture that will work across cable companies - not just across Comcast. That was a Herculean job to accomplish.

Suppose we took Roberts' view at face value. Is it reasonable to imagine the industry model evolving from a vertically integrated "customer experience" to a "platform-based" one? That is, is it reasonable to imagine that the initial innovation in an industry would require a high degree of control, so that specific investments in physical infrastructure could be coupled with specific investments in "software"?

In fact, we have seen this initially in telephony:

• The introduction of automatic switching had to be closely coupled with end user devices.
• The transitition to a "common battery" for handsets (from locally powered devices) also had to be closely coordinated. It is interesting that we seem to be gradually transititioning back to the locally powered paradigm, but that's another story.

Are we seeing this in wireless as well, with Verizon announcing the opening of their wireless network?

Undersea cable for Africa (TEAMS)

In following up to this item, you might be interested in this article, which is relatively rich in cost information. By the way, this site has information on other cable projects as well. Some tidbits for the TEAMS project:

• The project will involve the construction of a 4,887-km submarine telecoms cable linking the Kenyan coast with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The project will cost an estimated $110-million (or US$22,500/km). The cable has an expected lifetime of 25 years.
  
• 
  
• "Capacity will be allocated at cost with TEAMs investors paying $400,000 per STM1 per year. This translates to $2580.645 per megabit per year up to Fujairah and $ 215.00 megabit per month."
  
• "TEAMs shareholders are expected to operate on an Internal Rate of Return of 32.71 per cent with a pay back of 2.4 years."
  
• "Transit costs from Fujairah to Europe and US stands at between $55,000 to $100,000 per year"
  
  

The cost is considerably below the estimated US$70,000/km for the Guyana project ... why might this be the case?

Undersea Cable to Serve South America

Since the topic of undersea cables came up in class recently, you might find this item briefly describing a cable project between Guyana and Trinidad of interest. I think what is most useful are the cost and schedule details. Quoting the article:

Atlantic Tele-Network Inc., based in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Salem, Mass., expects to invest $35 million in the new cable, which will provide improved service to Guyana, Suriname and Brazil, the company said. It is expected to be completed in 2009. The region is currently served by an undersea cable between Florida and French Guiana, but many people in the region complain of slow Internet service and difficulty making international calls.

The distance covered by the cable is approximately 500km, so this project is estimated to cost US$70,000/km. How does this compare to other published cable costs?

Wither CableCARDs?

This article over at Ars Technica provides a nice, brief historical review of the CableCARD program. The goal of this program is quite clearly to promote competition in set-top boxes ... does it surprise you that it hasn't happened yet?

CATV vs television manufacturers

Speaking of standoffs ... there is an interesting one that is brewing. Under the auspices of Docket 97-80, the FCC has been seeking competition in the set-top box market. The initial approach has been to require a retail market for set-top boxes through a standardized interface. This was successful in the telephone CPE market and resulted in "Cable Cards", which currently are one-way and do not support interactive services and limit the way in which cable companies can manage cable spectrum, especially in light of increasing demand for high definition television channels. There are two strategies for overcoming this: one proposed by the consumer electronics industry and one by the cable industry. In the Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC-07-120, dated 29 June 2007), the FCC sought to move the parties to conclusions. In this article Brian Smith of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) compared the consequence of the approaches:

Cable does not want their services "disaggregated," i.e. allowing the CE device to become, in their view, a filter for the way they present and market services to the consumer. For example, they do not want their UI to be modified by the CE products, and they want everything on the UI to be available for the consumer to order and pay for. Cable wants copy protection and output control flexibility that they say is necessary for them to compete with other service providers.

CE and IT manufacturers believe that customers should have a choice in the blend of capabilities that they pay for in their products. They don't think that the combination of OCAP middleware and future cable conditional access software should totally control the TV and its access to other services/peripheral devices, or the home network. They don't think CableLabs should be able to unilaterally establish or change the specifications for what constitutes an Integrated cable ready receiver or the test process for approving them. CE wants all downloaded Cable applications to be thoroughly tested on CE devices for robustness.

The comment period for this has now come to an end, which (presumably) prompted this article in Forbes. Quoting the article:

The federal government may be forced to intervene in a long-running dispute between cable companies and the consumer electronics industry over how Americans will someday use their television sets to buy movies, shop and access other services.

The two sides have been at an impasse for nearly four years. And the stalemate continues despite several rounds of negotiations between individual companies and the two industries' powerful Washington lobbyists.

"We have absolutely no agreement with cable right now," said Julie Kearney, senior director at the Consumer Electronics Association. "As far as we are concerned, there is still a huge gulf between our position and what cable envisions."

On one hand are the large cable providers such as Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and privately owned Cox Communications Inc.

They are pitted against household electronics names such as Sony Corp., Pioneer Corp. and Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd.

Both cable providers and television makers believe that controlling the digital programming guide, effectively a television's menu system, is key to guiding the viewer towards products and services they can buy. And both refuse to give up that control.

By the way, this was foreshadowed in this FCC report (Annual Assessment of the Status of Competition in the Market for the Delivery of Video Programming).

So, what action, if any should the FCC take? Do you see similarities between these actions and developments taking place in the wireless industry?