Voice of the Industry 74 j a n 2014 ISSN 1948-3031 Global Outlook Edition In This Issue: Global Outlook Recent Trends in Submarine Cable System Upgrades Submarine Cables Add Resilience But Paths Still Matter
Reliability Is King Celebrating 10 Years of Apollo [click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 25 Stewart Ash
Apollo North & South (Source: Apollo) When considering high reliability and low fault rates for systems across the Atlantic, there is no better example than Apollo. Originally conceived as part of Cable & Wireless (C&W) global network, it is now owned by Apollo Submarine Cable System Ltd 1 (a Joint venture between Vodafone UK and Alcatel-Lucent). This company operates two independent trans-atlantic submarine cable systems, both supplied by Alcatel- Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN) 2. Last year Apollo celebrated its tenth anniversary, in that period, the systems have only experienced two submarine cable faults, one was due to man-made external aggression and the other was due to natural seabed activity; a record that it s Managing Director, Richard Elliott, is rightly proud of. [click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 26 A fault history for each cable of one repair every ten years is not just the envy of all the competing trans-atlantic cables but virtually every submarine cable owner, around the world, as the global industry average is on the order of one fault every 2-2½ years. Of course, such a low fault rate is not the product of serendipity; it is the outcome of key business and engineering decisions made during the course of the design development, installation and operation of the system. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Richard and some members of the team responsible for building Apollo to try and determine why they had been so successful in avoiding system faults and others had been less so. This article is a summary of those discussions. 1. http://www.apollo-scs.com/ 2. http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/solutions/submarine-networks Apollo Submarine Cable Systems Apollo is a Super Wholesale supplier of capacity, selling complete wavelengths (λ) to leading telecommunications and internet companies between London, New York, Paris and Washington D.C. This capacity is provided over two independent submarine systems; Apollo North, 6,200km between Bude, UK and Brookhaven, USA; and Apollo South 6,500km between Lannion, France and Manasquan, USA. Both of these systems went into service in February 2003. Each system contains four fibre pairs and had an initial design capacity for each fibre pair of 80λ x 10Gbit/s. In 2012, Apollo introduced 40Gbit/s technology to the systems and is currently rolling out 100Gbit/s technology which will be available in Q1 2014. Business Decisions The planning for Apollo coincided with the end of the industry boom and by the time the marine survey was underway the owners were aware that six new competing systems
Colin Richards with a section of SPDA cable (Source Apollo) [click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 27 had already been or were being built across the Atlantic. These were AC-1 (1999), AC-2 [formerly Yellow] (2000), FA-1 North/South [formerly Flag Atlantic] (2001), Hibernia Atlantic [formerly 360 Atlantic] (2001), TAT- 14 (2001) and TGN (2001). It was also clear, at that time that the growth in demand for capacity across the Atlantic had been greatly over estimated 3. This meant that once Apollo went into service there would be stiff competition for customers; that would drive down unit prices, and fill rates were likely to be much slower than had been previously hoped. These significant factors informed the business model and in consequence some key business assumptions were made. Firstly, that Apollo would have to differentiate itself from the competition. Secondly, as positive cash flow was likely to take a long time to materialise, lifetime costing was far more important than lowest capital cost and or speed to market. Based on these assumptions, Apollo set the strategic objectives of designing for high 3. D Burrnet et al Submarine Cables The Handbook of Law & Policy (2013) Chapter 1 From Boom to Bust Page 37 reliability and minimising lifetime cost. This meant identifying and mitigating the risk of external aggression, while ensuring that the location of a fault, if and when one did occur, could be identified accurately and repaired quickly. This approach to the project, when compared to less robust solutions, meant that they were unlikely to obtain minimum market pricing for the system supply and so took a clear decision to make additional capital investment if and when such investments could be shown to be justified in order to meet the project objectives. A key element in implementing this strategy was to carefully consider the contracting model to be adopted for the supply contract. They chose to pursue a negotiated contract rather than the more traditional competitive tender approach. In so doing it was judged that the ensuing collaborative relationship would be more conducive to meeting the project objectives than the more adversarial relationship that often emerges from a competitive tender. In a competitive tender, the successful supplier tends to be more focused on retrieval of margin given away to win the work than delivering the best solution possible. It was felt that a collaborative approach would allow for improvements to be made in the design of the system during the term of the supply contract rather than the supplier sticking rigidly to and only delivering the contract Scope of Work. It appears that this collaborative approach was to pay significant dividends, particularly in the Permitting and Cable Route Engineering (CRE) processes. Permitting Under the supply contract, Apollo adopted an approach of placing the responsibility for obtaining all permits with ASN; not just the normal operational permits for marine works, but also the Permits-in-Principle (PiPs) for the cable systems themselves. These PiPs had to be obtained in the name of Apollo s local entities in France, the UK, and the USA, and included all environmental permits, concessions, public and private rights of way across the seabed and on land; as well as the construction permits for three new cable landing stations. As is the case with virtually all submarine cable projects, the permitting process was on the critical path for Apollo, and thus fundamental to its timely implementation. The complexity of US permitting procedures and the relative slowness of the French permitting processes had to be taken into account. To complete this work effectively, Apollo and ASN developed a highly collaborative approach to the multitude of permitting tasks, focusing their energies on the shared objectives. According to Roy Carryer, ASN s Permitting and Environment Director: This team-based approach was key to the success of the permitting work. The setting up of a Permits Working Group as part of the project management structure, and participation by both ASN and Apollo in the many meetings with public authorities, especially in the USA, were major contributory factors in meeting the deadlines.
[click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 28 The central permitting team was reinforced by the local expertise of several subcontractors in France the UK and the USA. The complexity of the work on the rights of way in the US also required separate law firms to be hired in New York and New Jersey. It appears that the Apollo project can be held up as a good example of how to manage the complexity of US permitting for submarine cables. The work done by the Permits Working Group illustrates the difficulties that arise when obtaining, multiple authorisations, noobjections and clearances from a range of public authorities at four different levels of government: federal, state, county and municipal and how they can be overcome effectively. At Manasquan NJ, the permitting process was the primary factor in the selection of the landing point for Apollo South. Almost all public land, and much private land, nominally suitable for a landing point in Manasquan and adjoining boroughs was, and still is, enrolled in the State s Green Acres Program. Under this program there is a presumption against most forms of development. Permits to land submarine cables in such areas, if they can be obtained at all, have to pass through a highly onerous permitting process which could have seriously affected the project schedule. Given this difficulty, the permitting and marine teams collaborated to find a suitable area of coastal land excluded from the Green Acres Program, finally identifying a privately owned plot and successfully concluding an Agreement for its use. The Manasquan landing for Apollo was reviewed and permitted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) at the time when DEP was overseeing the drafting and adoption of its Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Rules which, perhaps uniquely among US states, include standard requirements for submarine cable projects. These cover such matters as stakeholder consultations, routeing, burial depth, cable crossings, and future monitoring. Earlier systems landing in New Jersey had been subject to significant conflicts between cable project developers and a pro-active fishing community worried about areas of seabed becoming effectively out of bounds to trawling and clam dredging. The DEP brought together Apollo / ASN and other cable developers with representatives of the fishing industry, and public officials, to negotiate the standard requirements in the CZM Rules that are still in place today. Roy Carryer believes that; Codifying the installation requirements in this way has allowed Apollo and the New Jersey fishing industry to co-exist with no incidents over the 10 years since Apollo was installed, and will also benefit the landing of future systems in the State In France, the project required Concessions to occupy public land from two neighbouring départements which had to be negotiated separately, and for which formal environmental impact studies had to be prepared. Obtaining these Concessions was subject to the normal lengthy and complex consultation, stakeholder engagement and public inquiry processes. It was further complicated not only by the intervention of the politically influential fishing industry, but also by the fact that the land route crossed an area owned and protected by the Conservatoire du Littoral, a body devoted to conservation of the coastline, with whom a formal agreement had to be negotiated. Cable Route Engineering Apollo was able to call on the vast experience of the C&W Network Services (NS) engineering group 4 to assist them in meeting the project objectives. One of the main roles of C&W NS was to manage and contribute its experience and expertise to the CRE process, whilst working in close cooperation with the ASN team. CRE is generally defined as the process of ensuring the physical security of the submarine system from natural and manmade hazards through route selection, slack allocation, cable type (including armour) choice, and the use of industry-standard cable burial and protection practices. Furthermore, it includes the use of trawlresistant designs for all seafloor housings (repeaters, equalisers and joints) installed in waters that may reasonably be expected to be fished over the design life of the system. In addition, CRE considers the viability of areas identified for the placement of repeaters and equalisers, relative to third party assets such as pipelines and other cables. It also addresses the engineering necessary for crossings of such third party assets and the technical elements of the associated crossing agreements that need to be negotiated. The 4. http://enterprise.vodafone.co.uk/u/submarine-systems-engineering/
[click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 29 usual starting point for CRE is a Desk Top Study (DTS). The contents of a DTS can vary significantly, depending on the level of investment that the project is prepared to make. As a minimum, a DTS can be some lines on a chart and a quick internet search; at the other end of the scale it will include detailed threat identification and analysis through publicly available data. This will include site visits to potential landing sites, and meetings with local authorities and other interested parties. In addition, a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) could also be conducted. The DTS for Apollo was a collaborative effort between ASN and C&W NS and, in line with Apollo s established project strategy, the level of investment was at the higher end of this scale. The potential threats to submarine cables can be divided into natural phenomena and man-made interventions. The vast majority of faults occur on the continental shelves, in water depths of <200m; in these depths the dominant causes of faults are man-made external aggression (fishing gear, anchors, dredging and other sea bed activities). Although natural hazards (earthquakes, seismic activity, tsunamis, slumping, turbidity currents storm surges and ice damage) do occur in shallow water they are in the minority. Natural hazard faults tend to be most significant in water depth >1000m. According to a 2007 study 5, around 80% of all cable faults worldwide are caused by man-made external aggression and over 60% of these faults are due to fishing gear. 5. M.E. Kordahi et al Trends in Submarine Cable System Faults (2007) Trans-Atlantic routes are relatively benign when considering natural hazards. The greater risks are man-made, on the wide European and American continental shelves, where intense fishing of various kinds poses significant threats to a cable. The main outcomes of the DTS were; identification of possible landing sites, selection of routes to be surveyed, a comprehensive Marine Survey / Burial Assessment Survey (BAS) specification, permitting requirements and a detailed risk analysis of external aggression threats. In particular, a detailed study of fishing activities along the preliminary cable routes was undertaken. For the Apollo North route, on the UK continental shelf, Apollo engaged the services of NetWork Services (Fishing Liaison and Marine Consultancy); its representative, Colin Richards was given the freedom to consult with the fishing industry in order to provide a fishing activity/risk assessment report. Colin has over 30 years experience as a fisherman and fishing gear technologist, he has an indepth understanding of fishing practices, trawl gear technology and manufacture, the fishing grounds, the people and the politics. To supplement his experience, the fishing industry was consulted about the proposed route. Consultation took place directly with the fishing vessel skippers, in order to obtain their first-hand, unbiased, straight talking views on the proposed route. This feedback was amalgamated with Colin s own views to arrive at the report s conclusions and provide recommendations for the way forward. The report detailed the type of fishing activity and bollard pull of the type of vessels that fished in the vicinity of the proposed route. One of the report s recommendations was an alteration to the proposed route in the Bristol Channel/eastern Celtic Sea. This was to avoid hard ground where cable burial may have been difficult to achieve and where fishing activity by vessels operating with heavy demersal trawl gear was taking place. This recommendation was adopted and the route was altered accordingly. Similar risk assessments were carried out through extensive liaison with the fishing communities that worked on the French and USA continental shelves. On the French continental shelf, heavy demersal trawling and scallop fishing were the major concerns, while on the US shelf clam dredging is the major risk. The fishing technique for clam dredging entails scraping off a layer of the sea bed, and fishermen return to the same location time and time again. In order to obtain the necessary permit, in this area, the State of New Jersey now requires, under its CZM Rules, a minimum burial depth of 1.2m for all cables. This requirement is due in large part to the standards set by Apollo. The preliminary CRE process, within the DTS, addressed the threats of fishing activity though the route selected to surveyed, preliminary choice of cable design (type and quantities), and identifying the area of seabed requiring BAS. Finally, it identified the third party cables that would cross the chosen routes. For both routes, including Out Of Service (OOS) and uncharted cables, there were a total of 121 individual
[click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 31 crossings. For each of these crossings the owners had to be identified and negotiations initiated for either clearing an OOS cable or putting in place a crossing agreement. This was no small task! Marine Survey The marine survey and BAS took place during 2001, at this time ASN was able to take of advantage of the relatively new Makai PLAN software package to assist with the CRE 6. This software works in the Geomedia GIS (Geographical Information System) environment, allowing most forms of electronic and digitised data to be pulled into a computer workspace as geo-referenced objects. This allows the route planner to visualise these data sets on the computer screen and then simply pick and click to create and design a suitable cable route. The route position points are automatically saved, easily exported as a Route Position List (RPL) and converted into a Straight Line Diagram (SLD) for cable manufacture. This speeds up the CRE process and reduces the risk of human errors that are more prevalent with manual data input techniques. As a result, important CRE decisions were made quicker, and with greater accuracy. One major benefit of the electronic planning process is that it allowed many previously unusable attributes within traditional survey data sets to be used for the first time. The most significant of these, was the use of multi-beam surveying data obtained from the shallow and deep water surveys. The multi-beam data contained large amounts 6. M Lawrence, S O Bow-Hove & M Jonkergouw Advance Terrain Mapping and High Performance Ploughing (2004) of seabed soundings; these were gridded and converted into a Digital Terrain Model (DTM), an enhanced 3D visualisation image of the sea bed, showing gradients and seabed composition (roughness) in the parts of the routes that had a particularly complex topography. These 3D images can be turned, skewed, zoomed into and out of; they can also be illuminated from different angles. This DTM gave the route planners the tools to assess, with far greater confidence, risk areas along the potential cable route. The results of marine survey and BAS were assessed jointly by the Apollo s and ASN s engineering teams, working closely to bring to bear their enormous collective experience. Thanks to Makai PLAN significant route development was possible to avoid previously unidentified sea bed features, one of which was the extent of a nuclear waste dumping ground off the USA continental shelf. Also, considerable time and effort was taken over deep water routing, to avoid sea bed currents that could abrade Lightweight (LW) cables. The BAS established that the sea bed on the route of Apollo South off Lannion was very hard and cable burial would be virtually impossible. Therefore, negotiations began with the French authorities to try and establish a No Fishing corridor for the cable within territorial waters. To achieve this, the authorities required a further survey to be carried out to demonstrate that no better protection of the cable could be achieved by moving the route to a different location. In addition, they required that a post installation survey be carried to confirm that the cable had not moved and the burial depth had been maintained. This survey was successfully completed in August 2006, so thanks to this additional investment, agreement for the No Fishing zone was obtained. The survey and BAS data were compared with the fishing risk reports, from this analysis it was determined that the system would be armoured down to the 2000m contour and buried down to the 1,500m contour on each shelf edge. In areas where burial was planned, a conservative approach was taken to cable selection, taking into account water depth, the burial depth expected and the identified risks of current and future external aggression. The final CRE specified cable types and quantities, slack allowances, burial requirements, crossing engineering and the detailed installation methodology. This included planning the location of all interlay splices and deep water (>4000m) Final Splices (F/S) for each system. For a F/S, an additional twice depth of water cable length has to be added to the system. Because of this a deep water F/S adds significant additional cost but is far less vulnerable to external aggression than a shallow water F/S. Submerged plant The cable design chosen for Apollo was ASN s OALC-4; on the continental shelves five different armour types were specified, these were Double Armour Heavy (DAH), Double Armour Medium (DAM), Single Armour Heavy (SAH), Single Armour Light (SAL) and for that section of the UK continental shelf where the risk of external
Cable Ship Ile de Batz (Source: Alcatel-Lucent) [click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 32 aggression was considered at its highest, a special cable, Special Purpose Double Armour, (SPDA) with enhanced impact and crush resistance was specified. The SPDA cable was designed by ASN specifically for especially harsh environments and is the strongest cable design of its type in existence. To date Apollo remains the only system to have incorporated SPDA. In deep water i.e. beyond the 2,000m contour, Lightweight Protected (LWP) and LW were specified. The ASN repeaters were built using 32nm wideband optical amplifiers and the repeater spacing was chosen to give a design capability of 80λ x 10Gbits/s per fibre pair. This design capacity was significantly greater than any of the systems Apollo would compete with. Also, meeting the objective of minimum lifetime costs, the design of the ASN repeater offered some other unique benefits. Firstly, it has a glanded bulkhead; this means it prevents water ingress to the repeater housing, if there is a cable break close to the repeater. Without this design feature, expensive repeaters would be written-off, if such a fault were to occur. This feature allowed the quantity of spare repeaters to be optimised. Secondly, the ASN repeater design has the most comprehensive supervisory and monitoring system in the market. This enables monitoring of the repeaters health from the Cable Landing Stations, while in service, so that any problems can be identified early and, if necessary, a planned replacement can be arranged, with capacity customers being warned well in advance. Also, the supervisory system is able to add to the accuracy of system fault location techniques, thus reducing down time and the cost of any repairs. Fortunately, due to the reliability of the product and the low fault rate, Apollo has not had to call on these particular technical benefits. Marine Installation The majority of the installation of the systems took place in 2002, although the shore end landing at Bude took place in November 2001 in order to avoid any disruption to the tourist season. Due to New Jersey permitting requirements, both US shore ends where installed through Horizontal Directional Drill conduits. The vast majority of the system was installed by ASN s Ile de Class cable ships. The vessels selected for the installation were, at the time, virtually new purpose built cable ships. They are large, dynamically positioned, stern working vessels with high bollard pull capability. Their design was a significant step forward from the previous generation of installation vessels. These vessels all operated using the fully integrated software package, Makai Lay which linked all installation operations. This laying software co-ordinates the instructions between the ship s navigation, dynamic positioning and cable machinery, as well as carrying out data logging for all cable laying, ploughing and ROV operations. Perhaps most significantly, it also provided the critical link between the installation operations and the CRE, as it imported, in a seamless and therefore error-free manner, the data from Makai PLAN. This ensured that data files that contained the details of the final, agreed routes were used during the installation. On each ship, the GPS controlled Dynamic Positioning system drives two main propellers, four tunnel thrusters and one azimuth thruster giving them sub-meter vessel station keeping ability. The stable hull design and huge power availability gives the vessels the ability to continue cable laying operations through worse weather and seastate conditions than had been previously possible. These attributes allowed critical plough launch and recovery operations to be performed in conditions up to and including sea-state 7, without incurring any risk of damage to the cable and or plough. Due to their stern working only configuration, with sheltered back decks, surface laying operations were able to continue through marginal weather conditions up to and including force 9. With the use of Makai Lay, the laying accuracy and slack control for deep water surface laying was optimised to avoid suspension and or loops. For plough burial on the continental shelves
SMD HD3 Cable Plough (Source: Alcatel-Lucent) [click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 33 the ships were equipped with the then new generation SMD HD3 plough. The vessels high bollard pull (up to 150 tonnes), meant that they could easily deliver the maximum tow tensions of 130 tonnes, that could be tolerated by HD3 plough. These HD3 ploughs, weigh between 26 33 tonnes and their capability is far beyond the previous generation of the then standard, 12 tonne ploughs. These were limited to a tow tension of 50 tonnes and could achieve a maximum burial depth of 1.1m. The HD3 ploughs have a standard burial depth of 2.4m, with an ability to increase this to 3m in very soft soils. It is also possible to bury down to 3m in stiffer/harder seabed, by adding an extension boot to the bottom of the plough share. The incorporation of a rock tooth allowed some plough penetration in areas where a rocky seabed predominated and no suitable sediment cover was available. By scratching the rock tooth into the surface of such a sea bed, the cable is placed underneath a type of berm that is formed along the scratch line by the fractured rocks and debris. This provides an increased level of protection for the cable than if surface laid. It also has an additional benefit, in that the berm provides a better sonar target for fishermen working in that area, to identify and avoid. Armed with these tools ASN were able to optimise the target burial depth, in line with the Burial Protection Index philosophy 7. The approach adopted for ploughing was to achieve the maximum possible burial depths within the safe working limits of the plough and vessel. Burial rates were scheduled at 15km/day although on a number of occasions, in order to achieve best burial, progress rates were reduced to as little as 3km/day. Despite this, no significant project down-time was incurred due to plough damage or maintenance and the 1.2m burial requirement was achieved over the entire US shelf for both routes. Achieved burial depths on the European shelves ranged from 1.7m in soft sediment to 0.1m in soft rock. Plough burial down to the 1,500m contour was achieved on all four shelf breaks, as planned. The plough burial program was supplemented by a comprehensive Post Lay Inspection and Burial (PLIB) program on all routes. The PLIB confirmed achieved burial depths, and conducted post lay burial at planned locations such as cable crossings. It also included remedial burial where the planned depth of plough burial had not been achieved. For both systems, a total length of 1,316km was planned to be plough buried 7. M Jonkergouw Industry Developments in Burial Assessment Surveying (BAS) (2001) and only 1.3% of this required any remedial burial work 8. Awareness and Notifications Having invested significant capital in reducing, wherever possible, the potential for cable damage, from external aggression, through a comprehensive CRE program and professionally executed installation operations, Apollo also took steps to ensure that the presence of the cable was known, to competing sea bed users. This included ensuring that the cable routes were published on official charts as soon as was practicable and that Notices to Mariners (NM) were published in a timely manner. For Apollo this required liaison with the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO); Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine (SHOM) in France; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Data Management Architecture (DMA) in the USA and the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS). The UKHO was first made aware of the planned Apollo routes in 2000, once the DTS routing had been finalised. The first NMs were published in May 2002 to coincide with survey operations and the final as laid routes were published on relevant charts on 17 th March 2003. When approached about information for this article, UKHO s Geographic Manager for the Americas responded: 8. ibid I whole heartedly concur with the theme of your article to highlight early and regular liaison with charting authorities as it is very important in many aspects
[click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 35 In addition to the charting authorities, ongoing liaison with organisations, that were identified during the project to have continued interest in the Apollo cable routes, were built into the company s operating procedures. For example, NetWork Services continues to maintain an up to date and thorough understanding of vessel movements and fishing trends relevant to the Apollo cable system. This understanding allows them to be employed in on-going fishing liaison and cable awareness activities directed at the skippers that operate in the vicinity of the Apollo cable system. On-going liaison consists of monitoring of fishing activity in the vicinity of the Apollo cable system, regular Apollo Cable Awareness Chart distribution, in addition to the Kingfisher Information Service 9, and port visits to meet directly with relevant fishing industry representatives and vessel skippers, both in the UK and abroad. According to Colin Richards, Apollo is seen as a success story by the fishermen, as they appreciate the consideration and efforts made to avoid their fishing grounds in the planning stages. Static gear fishermen also appreciated the efforts made to minimise disruption to their fishing activities and livelihoods during the installation process. Consulting with static gear fishermen from the outset of the project was a key factor in securing good relations with them. Fishermen appreciate the regular personal contact and the up to date Cable Awareness Chart information that Apollo 9. http://www.seafish.org/industry-support/fishing/kingfisher-information-services provides, which ensures that fishermen are kept aware of the position of the cable, encouraging them to avoid fishing directly over it, where possible, and highlighting the safety risk and the potential consequences of any interaction. Tracking Potential Aggressors Once Apollo went into service, air surveillance was carried out to monitor fishing activity in the vicinity of the cable with Colin Richards flying as observer during these flights. These operations helped to identify individual foreign vessels fishing in the vicinity of the cable, particularly in the deep water west of Longitude 8 00W and on the edge of the continental shelf. In recent years these flights have be replaced by AIS and VMS surveillance methods. The mandatory introduction of ECDIS to vessels over 500tons, in the next few years, is expected to be of further assistance in this area. Operations & Maintenance (O & M) Although the Apollo fault history is excellent, Richard and his team remain vigilant in protecting their systems and being ready to respond to cable faults, if required. The systems are covered by the Atlantic Private Maintenance Agreement and submerged plant spares are distributed in strategic locations, in order to be able to respond quickly and effectively to any future system fault. This represents a significant cost in the company s annual O & M budget and you may be forgiven for thinking that economies could be made. However, Richard Elliott explains: Although Apollo has an enviable reliability record we are not complacent. We can t afford to be. All this company does is provide north Atlantic capacity. If a cable is down our business is temporarily out of action. This is unique on the route, all our competitors have other revenue sources, only Apollo is 100% dependent on trans-atlantic capacity. We have to really care about it. Conclusions Apollo has been rewarded for the work done and the investment made, by two systems that have only suffered one fault each in 10 years. In 2004, Apollo North suffered an seabed induced cable fault in 5,000m of water and in 2005; the Apollo South cable suffered damage by fishing gear, in 300m of water, off Lannion, well outside territorial waters. With marine repairs costing on the order of US$0.5 1.0M a time, a fault history like Apollo s can make a significant difference to the company s O & M costs. However, perhaps more significant, is the fact that the incidence of cable faults is inversely proportional to customer loyalty and, for a company like Apollo, customer loyalty is essential. In many cases the work done by Apollo and ASN was, at the time, leading edge. Today the CRE and installation techniques used are more readily available. However, in order to be as successful as Apollo, a project needs a purchaser that is prepared to make the necessary up-front financial investment and to give the supplier the time necessary to design and implement the system properly.
[click the arrow below to return to the TOC] 36 It also needs a supplier with the experience and capability to deliver the necessary services and technology, but perhaps more importantly a supplier that is prepared to deliver the best available solution to its customer, without being bound rigidly to the contract scope of work. The benefits of early and ongoing consultation with third parties and in particular the fishing industry cannot be over stated. To quote Colin Richards: In my opinion Apollo, was a well-planned and well installed subsea cable system and it has been well managed from the beginning. Potential fishing risks were always a high priority during the planning stage and fishing liaison has been an integral and valued element from initial marine works through to the present day. As a consultant I regularly stress to my clients, when they are planning a submarine cable project, that it is a long term investment and that they should be looking at lifetime costs as opposed to focusing on the short term capital cost of procurement. Also, that speed to market is not necessarily a good thing, especially if it means compromising on critical engineering decisions. Time should be taken to fully evaluate the risks and to carry out detailed cost benefit analysis on major design issues. There are few examples where it can be seen that greater investment at the front end has saved money over the life time of the project. Unfortunately, there are too many examples of when the converse is true. When it comes to planning and implementing a submarine cable system the old adage, You can have it Right or you can have it Now but you can t have it Right Now is, I believe, a good one. To date, the Apollo systems appear to be a shining example of this philosophy. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank, Richard Elliott, Maja Summers, Nick Smith, Sasha O Bow-Hove, Roy Carryer, Julian Clark, Colin Richards, John Kincey and Nigel Fisher for their insights and views that were invaluable in preparing this article. Stewart Ash s career in the Submarine Cables industry spans more than 40 years, he has held senior management positions with STC Submarine Cables (now Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks), Cable & Wireless Marine and Global Marine Systems Limited. While with GMSL he was, for 5 years, Chairman of the UJ Consortium. Since 2005 he has been a consultant, working independently and an in association with leading industry consultants Pioneer Consulting, Red Penguin Associates, Walker Newman and WFN Strategies, providing commercial and technical support to clients in the Telecoms and Oil & Gas sectors. Apart from his regular Back Reflection articles, he has authored a number of articles and conference papers on a wide range of industry issues. In 2000, he edited and co-wrote Elektron to e Commerce, a brief history of the first 150 years of the submarine cable industry. He also wrote Chapter 1 The Development of Submarine Cables for the recently published Submarine Cables The Handbook of Law and Policy sponsored by ICPC.