Chapter 5 - Submarine Networks

Abstract

Submarine cable systems are being used as international telecommunication media interconnecting the continents and as domestic or regional communication media by countries facing or surrounded by the sea. Submarine cable systems have been constructed by telecommunication carriers in accordance with predictions of traffic demand. An unprecedented increase in international traffic, fuelled by the Internet and by the introduction of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) fiber-optic technologies, has altered submarine cable systems considerably, especially their network aspect. Network restoration within submarine cable systems has become more important because of the increase of submarine cable capacity, which cannot be restored by the capacity of a satellite link and which conforms to the requirement of fast restoration. Recent submarine-cable-network architectures have been optimized by network planners in various forms in accordance with diverse conditions and requirements, such as traffic patterns, connectivity, geography, availability, economics, and sovereignty among countries. Typical network topologies deployed in the past several years are ring, trunk-and-branch, festoon, and mesh, although individual networks vary significantly.