Editor’s Insight: Looking ahead to 2019 4 News highlights from the past 2 months 6 A new peak in the submarine cable industry 7 Eckhard Bruckschen, Managing Director and Editor of SubCableNews, looks at the prevailing trends in the subsea connectivity landscape Building the subsea workforce of the future 8 Lynsey Thomas, Director at SubSea Networks Ltd looks forward to the ‘Building tomorrow’s subsea cable workforce’ panel at Subsea Networks EMEA in February Changing business models & partnerships 13 Zvika Caspy, VP Sales East Europe & Mediterranean at Sparkle discusses the evolution of business models and commercial strategy in the subsea sector The key challenge for the industry (and it’s not just aging cables!) 15 Andy Bax, COO of Seaborn Networks talks about the challenges and op- portunities for network operators in the subsea sector Meeting the demand for network diversity 19 Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX discusses the transformative role that carrier neutral facilities can play in the connectivity initiatives of tomorrow 2 A slowing down of the hype; focus on consolidation and system 21 upgrades Giuseppe Sini, Head of International Business Unit at Retelit discusses his company's plans for 2019 and beyond Revolutionising network design with SDN & NFV 22 Conrad Mallon, Chief Network Architect at SSE Enterprise Telecoms speaks about the importance of proactive network management in pre- paring for SDN and NFV deployment Ten Key Themes Being Discussed at Submarine Networks EMEA 24 Attend Submarine Networks EMEA 25 2019 Sponsors, Exhibitors & Partners 26 3 Hello and welcome to the Submarine Networks EMEA 2019 e-magazine. As we begin the final countdown to the event in London this February, we want to bring you right up to date with all the latest news and developments from the subsea sector. The past twelve months has seen a flurry of activity in the industry, with a number of high profile projects coming to fruition in 2018 – particularly in the southern hemisphere. The long-anticipated SAIL subsea cable system launched in September 2018, providing the first ever link between South America and Africa. The 6,000km cabling system will provide 100G transmission and a staggering 32Tbps of capacity, revolutionising cross-Atlantic con- nectivity in the southern hemisphere. In addition to SAIL, 2018 saw a clutch of projects aimed at bringing connectivity to some of the most remote regions of the world. Mauritius (MARS) and Cape Verde (EllaLink) received the go ahead for projects that will revolutionise connectivity in the region. It's been a busy year for the subsea sector and this edition of the Submarine Networks e- magazine is packed full of insight and opinion from some of the industry's leading players. We spoke with Eckhard Bruckschen, Managing Director & Editor at SubCableNews, about the issues that are defining the industry today. Brukschen suggests that an emerging skills shortage in the subsea sector could hamper the industry's ability to keep pace with insatia- ble demand for connectivity. As engineers move towards the client side of the business, contractors are being left with a big gap to fill, prompting Bruckschen to suggest that the subsea sector needs to embark on a global recruitment drive. We also caught up with Gil Santaliz, CEO of New Jersey Fiber Exchange, who talks about the importance of Carrier Neutral data centres in the global connectivity space. At this year's Submarine Networks EMEA event in London, Gil Santaliz will discuss the importance of building tier-3 facilities capable of linking multiple cable landing points. As Santaliz says: "One subsea cable is a good application, but multiple subsea cables between four continents is a game changer.” 4 Later in the e-magazine, we talk to Conrad Mallon, Chief Network Architect at SSE Enter- prise Telecoms about the role that SDN and NFV solutions can play in revolutionising net- work designs. Mallon argues that all new network builds, whether subsea or terrestrial, should only be deployed with SDN ready infrastructure. "Without streamlined processes and robust templates for the deployment of services like SDN and Network Function Virtu- alisation (NFV), no amount of technology will resolve the perennial telecoms challenge of GIGO (Garbage In – Garbage Out). Once the documentation of those processes and devel- opment of those configuration templates has been addressed … SDN can then become the reality that’s been predicted," he said. In our exclusive interview with Subsea Networks' CEO, Lynsey Thomas, we hear about the challenges of replacing an aging work force, and creating the right conditions for young tal- ent to flourish. We also catch up with Retelit and Seaborn Networks to get their take on how the industry will evolve over the next 12 months. With a whole host of projects slated for launch in 2019, it promises to be another busy year ahead for the subsea networks industry. We are looking forward to bringing you all the news, as it happens, on totaltele.com and to welcoming you to the Submarine Networks EMEA event in February. Submarine Networks Europe 2018 5 Submarine Networks Europe 2018 6 What trends are you noticing developing in the subsea market at the moment? The subsea market has grown over the past years exponentially with now over 150,000 km of cable proposed to be deployed within the next years and with further projects announced every month. At this moment in time the OTT’s, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are the biggest investors in this industry. New and future submarine cables will be built together with at least one OTT as a partner/co-investor. The normal Carrier/PTT Consortia is now a thing of the past (well almost). This has created a new peak within the industry, with new routes be- ing constantly developed, new landing point locations selected and routing communication/ data traffic to large data centre campuses. There is no current end in sight for this new build frenzy, but no analyst is able to provide a prediction for the year’s post 2020. However, more connectivity means more content and information flows to more regions, so an expo- nential increase in demand to adapt to the growing needs of consumers is driving new pro- jects in this market. Technology is also evolving much further and faster, with 400 Gigabit connections on the horizon, 16 fibre pair repeaters, modular design of landing stations and data centres, to only name a few. Chinese cable manufacturers are gaining more market share, where others are being bought by equity firms, predicting perhaps a more uncertain future. We might see further protectionism being applied by countries to avoid the upcoming domi- nance of Asian players in the market (as is currently happening in Australia). 7 Which locations are becoming key connectivity hubs? What are the up and coming locations? The key connectivity hubs, which evolved in recent years in the EMEA region, are Mar- seille in France and Dublin in Ireland. However, with more trans-Atlantic connectivity com- ing online from the US, South America and Africa, other locations are moving in and with the focus to be the next interconnection points. In Europe, Portugal will play an even more important role as further cables are planned to be landed here (e.g. Ellalink, WASACE-1, etc.). Bilbao in Spain was used by MAREA and TGN Western Europe – this could also attract further cables, if the terrestrial interconnec- tion onwards to Marseille in France is established. The region around Blaabjerg in Denmark is an uprising interconnection point as the new HAVFRUE/AEC-2 and North Sea Connect cables, as well as the submarine fibre optic ca- ble from the COBRAcable (Interconnector between Denmark and The Netherlands) will all be landing here. CANTAT-3, TAT-14 and Danice are already in place in the region. Then of course we shouldn’t forget the ambition of Cinia in Finland to make Helsinki the Eastern Europe Connectivity hub (currently served by BCS North; Baltic Sea Submarine Cable; C-Lion 1; Eastern Light, FEC; EESF-2 and EESF-3) with planned connections to Asia, via the Arctic Circle (planned cable Arctic Connect). In Africa, two locations/countries are to be named here, South Africa and Djibouti. In South Africa, cables like ACE, WACS, SAT-3, EASSy, SEACOM, SAFE are currently land- ing and interconnecting the region with Europe, Middle East and South East Asia. In the future, cable systems like SAEx, SABR, METISS, IOX, Africa-1 are providing further connectivity directly to South America and the US as well as East Africa, India and the Indi- an Ocean Islands communities. Djibouti in Africa is playing an increasingly significant role in the East of the continent, as all cables routing between South East Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe are also landing in Djibouti. New cables like DARE, Africa-1 and PEACE will soon provide additional con- nectivity to this hub. All these landing points are interconnection platforms, where the traffic is being distribut- ed and huge data centre build-outs taking place or will take place in the near future. Of course, the infrastructure behind these landing points needs to be attractive and well planned – power as well as the last-mile connectivity is key for the success of such hubs. We can see that the “Virginia Beach” example might be replicated all over this region (EMEA). What is the biggest barrier to progress in the industry today? What can be done to remove it? In my opinion the biggest challenge the industry is facing is funding. The funding needs to consider the requirement for a high capacity cable system, which addresses all security 8 concerns and is integrated into a mesh network, providing a back-up solution in case of disruptions to the provided service.