Global Marine Systems Ltd, the cable installation and maintenance arm of Global Crossing, is responding to the surge in broadband demand and internet usage by expanding its shipping fleet. The company is investing $30m in a new cable-laying ship which will be able to embed cables three meters deeper than traditional ships.
Demand for cable laying is such that the vessel, Bold Endeavour, is already booked in from its launch date on December 1 for six months laying transatlantic cable number 14 for KDD-SCC, the cable systems supplier division of KDD, the Japanese telco.
Next year, says Dave Skentelbery, Global Marine’s director of operational facilities, eight ships will lay cables for 280 days each. This will see the company laying 33,000km of cable worldwide, 15% more than last year, and it expects cable demand to rocket a further 60% to 53,000km in 2001. The total length of cables laid will rise from 76,000km this year to 187,000km in 2001. Global Marine currently either owns or operates 13 vessels. By January however, says Skentelbery,, there will be 19. The company is purchasing several roll-on roll-off ferries to convert to maintenance ships.
The increasing importance of cable to business communications has meant that the one meter undersea embedding is no longer sufficiently secure. Fishing and anchoring disruption has forced Global Marine to go to 3 meters embedding cables under the seabed even in deep water.
