Cable breaks plague Asian subsea cable operators

The Asian subsea sector has been plagued with frequent cable breaks, according to a senior executive from Telstra, the region's biggest submarine bandwidth player.

Paul Abfalter, head of North Asia and wholesale for the Australian telco, said cable cuts were the "hottest topic" for Asian submarine bandwidth providers.

"Subsea is existentially critical to Asia, perhaps more so than other regions," he told an online forum.

According to the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), Asia is the worst region for cable cuts. Availability of cables in the region so far this year had fallen below 90%, compared to the global figure of 98%.

Abfalter said Telstra had experienced more than ten cuts to its subsea infrastructure this year, including the C2C, EAC and AAG cables.

Although the region has some seismic hotspots, fishing vessels are far and away the biggest cause of cable breaks, he said.

Most cables in the region had been installed in the early 2000s and were buried at 1m or less below the seafloor. The arrival of new and well-equipped fishing vessels meant many could penetrate to that depth, with the problem exacerbated by a post-covid surge in fishing activity.

Additionally, red tape in many Asia-Pacific countries is slowing down repairs. Cable operators often have to wait up to two to three months for approvals, especially if the cable break is in international waters, Abfalter said.

Supply chain bottlenecks

However, he acknowledged that Telstra and other cable operators were enjoying the continued slowdown in bandwidth price erosion.

Marvin Tan, a TeleGeography research analyst, says this is mostly a result of supply chain bottlenecks, which has led to delays in both cable upgrades and new cable builds.

"We have been hearing the [supply chain] has been improving, but it is not back to normal because of the continued evidence of slow price erosion," he said.

In response to the years of delay, a worldwide surge in cable construction is now underway, led by trans-Pacific and intra-Asian cables.

TeleGeography predicts $3.5 billion in new cable builds across the Pacific in 2023-25, compared to around $600 million in 2020-2022. Intra-Asia will undergo a similar boom, with around $3 billion in fresh capacity already contracted over the next three years.

Abfalter said the explosion in construction could mean some "potential international overbuild."

"The execution issues are backing up. A lot of cable investment has become a huge issue for us. Not just on big routes but also smaller, boutique single-segment routes, of which there are a lot in Asia.

He said the other big change taking place was the growth in new connectivity hubs like Philippines, Taiwan, Korea and even Australia.

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"Five years ago we would never have forecast people getting from US to Asia through Australia, but that is now happening at serious scale."

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— Robert Clark, contributing editor, special to Light Reading