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Spanning glass wire still needed(The Jakarta Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) from THE JAKARTA POST -- MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2006 -- PAGE 18 For most of us, it is not often that we get invited to a dinner on board a ship. So, when Alcatel invited some twenty journalists including myself to have a break of the fasting on top of one of their cable- laying ships, named the Ile de Sein, I jumped at it right away While the dinner was great, as it was prepared by Indonesia's culinary guru William Wongso, it was the opportunity to learn how the submarine cable was laid on the seabed that was the main attraction for me With so much attention given to the wireless technology lately, we may have forgotten the role of the submarine fiber optic cables The fact is that these cables are still the backbone of telecommunications infrastructure. There was perhaps a time when people thought there was a glut of submarine cables in the world, but new demand for high speed Internet connections has created a soaring market for submarine cables In addition, the use of terrestrial fiber optic cables is also picking up pace. In more advanced countries around the world people already have Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) services An FTTH provides a high speed broadband pipeline into a box that will then distribute the connection to the individual houses In countries like Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and certainly the U.S., FTTH has enabled e-learning, online television (IPTV) and other services that require speed above one megabyte per second Worldwide, however, the fiber optic (FO) cables are used as backbone infrastructure rather than the last-mile connection To drop the cables in the right places on the seabed, highly specialized ships are needed, and the Ile de Sein is a vessel with state-of-the-art equipment for undersea cable installation The Vessel A lot of us may have forgotten that the first long-distance submarine cable was laid by the French in 1869. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Brest on the Western tip of Europe with Duxbury, Massachusetts It comprised copper strands, of course, as the fiber optic technology did not then exist. It also carried an analog signal -mostly telegraph - as digital computer came much later in history So, it has been almost one and a half centuries since the first submarine cable was installed. The cable laying vessel that Alcatel invited us to clearly demonstrated how challenging the task is, even with so much technology in use Ile de Sein is one of the three cable laying ships that Alcatel currently operates. A massive ship, it was built in 2002 in Korea along with her two sisters the Ile de Brehat and the Ile de Batz During the tour, I was continuously impressed by the cleanliness of the ship, although, I was told by the Captain, she has to be on the sea for months at times The ship, 140 m long and 23 m broad, has two cable tanks where the cable is stored before being pulled out into the sea. Each tank, 7 m high and 19 m in diameter, can carry up to 700 km double-armored cable or 5,000 km of lightweight cable The total cable payload that the vessel can carry is 5000 tons. I was surprised to be told that they actually had to place the cable inside the tanks manually to avoid problems during deployment The first place we were brought to in the tour was the ship's bridge This is the place where the captain controls everything, including the cable laying work A very interesting part is the Dynamic Positioning (DP) System. As cable laying is a high precision task, most of the time, the ship should be held in the same position even when they are confronted with raging tempests or high waves "We will still be able keep this ship in position in up to Seastate 7," the Captain told us This becomes even more imperative during repair work, as broken cables have to be reconnected. The ship can only sway one meter to each side at the maximum, and this can be achieved only with the DP system and the four propellers and thrusters on the sides of the ship. "Every computer on this ship has a backup," the Captain said A survey team also works with a number of computer terminals at the back of the bridge. Keep in mind that every submarine cable installation project must begin with a survey on the seabed Sonar tools are used to measure the depth of the water, the topology, the undercurrent, etc. The cable route has to strictly follow the result of the survey If the route encounters a plunge in the seabed, then the fiber optic cable should also go down the entire depth of the trough. The survey team continuously makes sure that the cable is laid in the right place A 30 ton plough at the back deck of the ship will be lowered to the seabed to perform the cable installation Normally, the plough can bury the cable one meter deep under the seabed, but in places where the cable should go deeper an additional tool will have to be attached to it The cable is then buried three meters deep to avoid being hit by anchors or fishing trawls, for example The connection is constantly tested to ensure that there is no problem with signal transmission. Repair is costly and time consuming, so problems should be detected as early as possible. On the ship there are rooms where the testing is conducted and the repair 'splicing' is done Java to Other Islands Alcatel, the French giant with offerings that cover all the three telecommunication infrastructure technologies -terrestrial, satellite and submarine - has a 41 percent share of the market for submarine cable installation "Since they were first operated, our three cable laying ships have been fully booked to carry out projects all over the world," explained Jan Glinski, President Director of Alcatel Indonesia, during the interview on board the ship Immediately after the dinner, the Ile de Sein was on her way to Singapore and then to Europe where another big project was already waiting The Ile de Sein has just finished two projects for Indosat, which were to build the cable infrastructure called Jakasusi and Jasutra The first connects the islands of Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi while the latter is the extension that connects Java and Sumatra The new infrastructure will be used to provide more services to the other major islands of Indonesia. So, although not as fast as we would like to see, the development of the infrastructure will provide the other islands with improved access Zatni Arbi, Contributor, The Jakarta Post Copyright 2006 The Jakarta Post Copyright 2006 The Jakarta Post. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Intelligence Wire. |