Cable engineering: where route, cable, and fiber integrate

During the conceptual period of a cable system with a client, the design and engineering must proactively develop the basis for the build and the financial considerations of the project. Cable Engineering cannot wait for the site visits, surveys, controlled documentation, process reviews, budget analysis, cost matrixes, plans of work, ship schedules, optical design work, etc., but rather, Cable Engineering must work with draft copies and preliminary whatifs to communicate and to feedback a variety of constraints and technical specifications to the Project Team. Iterations of documents and extremely open communication channels throughout the Project Team allow focus and changes to happen rapidly. By making Cable Engineering documents available within a month of the signing of an intent to proceed (ITP) with the client, the concerns of the system are made available for internal review. Actions are then taken to resolve any design, development needs, chances to the route, or enhancements for build, installation, maintenance and repair, and future upgrades. Knowing the client´s market, capacity and bandwidth demands in the area, permitting implications, physical constraints (i.e. weather, fishing, ...), natural and man-made hazards, timing, etc., all influence scheduling-and budget. By combining the physical parameters of the route and the cable with the optical design, cable engineering links the details of the parts of the system to facilitate factory build, tanking, and integration. The cable production and tanking are monitored and anomalies isolated and amended. Cable, once built and integrated, is loaded from the factory tanks to freighters or cable ships and is ultimately installed. As such, Cable Engineering is the backbone of successful integration of route engineering, optical design, vessel loading, installation deployment, transmission timing, schedule, and budget for all projects.