Subcom News

On a windswept island 50 miles north of Seattle sits a U.S. Navy monitoring station. For years, it was kept busy tracking whale movements and measuring rising sea temperatures. Last October, the Navy gave the unit a new name that better reflects its current mission: Theater Undersea Surveillance Command.The renaming of the spy station at the Whidbey Island naval base is a nod to a much larger U.S. military project, according to three people with direct knowledge of the plans:…

On Feb. 10 last year, the cable ship CS Dependable appeared off the coast of the island of Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean atoll that’s home to a discreet U.S. naval base.Over the next month, the ship’s crew covertly laid an underwater fiber-optic cable to the military base, an operation code-named “Big Wave,” according to four people with direct knowledge of the mission, as well as a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and ship tracking data.The new super-fast internet link to Diego Garcia, which has not previously been reported, will boost U.S. military readiness in the Indian Ocean, a region where China has expanded its naval influence over the last decade.The CS Dependable is owned by SubCom…

Plagued by mosquitoes at night and marauding monkeys by day, ship captain Glenn Madoginog was held for months at an Indonesian naval base before ending up in a cramped prison cell, sleeping alongside convicted murderers and child rapists.The Filipino father of four was one of dozens of captains held at the Batam naval base after being arrested for anchoring in Indonesian waters without a permit while waiting to enter Singapore, according to a dozen people involved in the cases, including captains, ship owners, intermediaries and insurers.Most of the captains were freed after a few weeks once ship owners made unofficial payments to navy intermediaries of between $300…

Life-saving water supplies from a New Zealand navy ship were distributed across Tonga's main island on Friday, as other countries battled the logistics of delivering aid to one of the world's remotest communities.Six days after the South Pacific archipelago was devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami that deposited a blanket of ash and polluted its water sources, the HMNZS Aotearoa docked in the capital, Nuku’alofa.The ship carried 250,000 liters of water and desalination equipment able to produce 70,000 litres more per day, New Zealand's High Commission said."Trucks ...

The market for marine services in support of the installation and maintenance of undersea telecommunications cables has matured over a period of more than 100 years to reach its present state of development. The largest providers of marine services (companies such as the Global Marine Group, SubCom, Alcatel Submarine Networks and Orange Marine) take different approaches to operations, but provide a mature and assured set of services that play a critical role in the industry. Marine services support the suppliers of undersea cable systems (delivering 50…

Cerberus Capital Management announced that one of its affiliates has entered into an agreement with TE Connectivity under which Cerberus will acquire TE's Subsea Communications business (SubCom).Headquartered in Eatontown, New Jersey, SubCom is a leading global supplier of subsea communications systems with approximately $700 million in revenue, based on fiscal year 2018 expectations. The business designs, manufactures, deploys, and maintains the subsea fiber optic cable systems that are vital for global communications.To date, SubCom has completed more than 100 cable systems and deployed over 610,000 kilometers of cable through its eight high-performance cable ships, which are among the most efficient and capable in the industry.

ABS facilitated a Polar Code Operational Assessment, a milestone in the implementation of the IMO Polar Code. The assessment, which identifies operational risks and limitations, was performed with TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, on its cable-laying vessel, Responder. “Completing this assessment is a critical milestone for the marine industry and the first of its kind in North America,” says ABS Chairman, President and CEO Christopher J. Wiernicki. To obtain a Polar Ship Certification (PSC), vessels undergo an assessment that defines the intended operational profile and identifies relevant hazards.

The crew deployed on the C.S. Dependable, a transoceanic cable ship from TE SubCom, rescued 14 fisherman in the Arabian Sea off the Maharashtra Coast near Mumbai, India. Indian fishing boat FV Datta Sai sank on September 17 with 16 persons aboard, no personal floatation devices and no VHF radio. The C.S. Dependable, in transit between work sites, came across the fisherman clinging to floating debris and treading water, and all hands were called to enact an immediate water rescue. “This was a complicated and dangerous effort that required excellent communication and everyone’s commitment to this rescue, as I had to maneuver the ship to keep the men in the water away from thrusters,” said Captain Yann Durieux, Master, C.S. Dependable, TE SubCom.

Korean Telecommunications provider KT has been named the key operator of the world's largest submarine network cable, New Cross Pacific (NCP). Korea's dominant fixed-line operator said it will run a network center to control the submarine cable which helps connect network systems in Asia-Pacific countries to the North American region. The company said it will start operation of the 14,000-kilometer-long NCP cable in December 2017. The purpose of the NCP Project is to form a submarine cable network with a data processing capacity of about 80 Tbps across the Pacific Ocean. "KT will play a central role as a global traffic hub with a network operation center (NOC) in Busan," Korea Times quoted Oh Seong-mok, executive vice president of KT's network division, as saying.

TE SubCom has announced the commencement of the new Hibernia Express submarine cable system. The 4,600 km cable will provide the lowest-latency fiber-optic path between New York and London, connecting Halifax, Nova Scotia and Brean, UK, with terrestrial fiber to extend connectivity to the major metro areas. Hibernia Express will initially launch with 100 Gbps transmission capacity using TE SubCom’s C100 SLTE platform. It will be a 6-fiber-pair submarine cable, with a portion of the fibers optimized for lowest latency and a portion optimized for 100x100 Gbps design capacity. The total cross-sectional design capacity of the cable will be over 53 Tbps.

TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, announced that its engineers have demonstrated record-breaking transpacific transmission using both 200Gb/s and 400Gb/s data channels. The results, presented at the recent post deadline session of the 2013 OFC/NFOEC conference in Anaheim, CA, demonstrated a total capacity on a single fiber pair of 21Tb/s transmitted over more than 10,000km at a spectral efficiency of 6b/s/Hz. This achievement was enabled by careful engineering of the transmitted signals, in order to achieve both long-distance performance and high spectral utilization. “Transpacific length transmission at 6b/s/Hz spectral efficiency is a significant milestone for undersea communications,” said Seymour Shapiro, CTO, TE SubCom.

TE SubCom contracted by Chevron to connect the Jack & St. Malo offshore facility with an undersea fiber optic communications system in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Jack & St. Malo fields are located approximately 280 miles south of New Orleans, LA in water depths of 7,000 feet. The fields are supported by a semi-submersible platform which will be connected by 106km of submarine cable, subsea equipment, and a new branching unit to an existing fiber network. The branching unit will incorporate SubCom’s proprietary OADM technology and transmission requirements will be met by SubCom’s leading submarine line terminating equipment installed on the facility and in landing stations located in Mississippi and Texas.

TE SubCom starts production on Chevron's Big Foot undersea fiber optic communications system in deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Big Foot is a tension-leg platform located approximately 225 miles south of New Orleans, LA in water depths of 1,600 meters (5,200 feet). 61km of submarine cable, along with a dynamic riser and various subsea equipment, will connect to a branching unit of an existing network using SubCom’s proprietary OADM branching unit technology. The Big Foot transmission requirements will be met by SubCom’s leading submarine line terminating equipment installed on the facility and in landing stations located in Mississippi and Texas.

Company Demonstrates 100Gb/s-Based Transmission at 10Tb/s per Fiber Pair with First Generation Coherent Transmission Equipment. TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. Company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced it has successfully demonstrated 100Gb/s coherent transmission over trans-Atlantic distances at ultra-high 10Tb/s total capacity on a single fiber. The test was completed using a prototype of the company’s new, first generation smarTEr C100 transceiver. “This significant customer demonstration builds on a 60-year track record of commitment to specialized, long-haul undersea transmission research and development and success in delivering capacity-record-setting undersea cable systems,” said David Coughlan, CEO, TE SubCom.

TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, and Alcatel-Lucent announced an expansion to their joint maintenance program for submarine optical communication links throughout the Pacific basin. The Pacific End-to-End Maintenance Solution boosts the companies’ ability to maintain and repair undersea cables in the northern Pacific region, to support current telecommunications clients and other potential customers seeking marine services. Submarine cable networks connect countries and continents, carrying vast amounts of data traffic, including video. They are developed for high reliability over their 25-year design life. However, cables can be damaged by external forces such as earthquakes, hurricanes, intense fishing activity and ship anchors.

Emerald Atlantis Limited (EA) and TE SubCom,  a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, have announced the finalization of an Instruction to Proceed (ITP) to build the Emerald Express Trans-Atlantic Cable System. The first phase will provide both low-latency and ultra-high bandwidth capacity between the US, Canada, UK and Iceland, requiring 5,200km of advanced submarine fibre optic cable. To achieve the desired ultra-high capacity rates, Emerald Express has been designed to support 100x100Gbs on each of its six fibre pairs. The trans-Atlantic marine cable route survey between UK and Canada commences in early August and the Emerald Express system will enter service in late 2012.

Pacific Fibre and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, announced the signing of a supply contract for the Pacific Fibre undersea cable system. The exceptionally long system will stretch 12,750km and boast a high cross sectional capacity. Intended to meet the increasing demand for international bandwidth in Australia and New Zealand, which has been growing at a rate of 55 percent per year, the Pacific Fibre system is planned for completion in 2014. The two-cable system will link Australia and New Zealand via a trans-Tasman cable, while connecting New Zealand to the United States via a trans-Pacific cable. The cable landing points will be in Sydney, Australia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Los Angeles, California in the United States.

MORRISTOWN, NJ, USA – May 2, 2011 –TE SubCom (SubCom), an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced it has successfully completed testing of its new 4-port branching unit, making it the first undersea communications supplier to offer the solution and paving the way for the deployment of multilayered undersea telecommunication networks. An upgrade from the standard 3-port branching unit (BU), the 4-port BU is capable of handling three separate power paths and enables alternative powering configurations.

Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics, announced it is now operating under a new corporate name: Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications (TE SubCom). In 2010, TE SubCom will complete cable installations and upgrade projects in Asia, the Middle East and the North Atlantic. The company’s management team remains unchanged and TE SubCom maintains the existing company headquarters, research and development laboratories, manufacturing facilities, ships and depots located worldwide. (www.subcom.com)