Cable route surveys from a surveyor´s perspective

There are approximately 350,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable on the seafloor now and another 300,000 kilometers envisioned in the next few years. From an investors or owner´s point of view, a new cable system is ideally installed quickly using the latest data transfer and fiber optic technology thereby allowing the system to get on-line earning revenues and market share. Within the subsea telecommunications industry, the system operators are dependent upon major suppliers to manufacture and install a subsea cable to a specification or requirement. In turn, the suppliers are dependent on a variety of contractors for the cable manufacturing and marine survey and installation operations. The key marine operators are the surveyors, engineers and installers. The surveyors are to provide a preliminary route in the desktop study, which has been selected based on available environmental and historical data. The surveyor´s job is to validate this route or provide alternate routes if necessary and to provide information for Gable engineering decisions regarding type of Gable, amount of cable (slack) and cable burial potential along the route. The engineers then generate the detailed specifications for the cable manufacture and the installation. Finally, the installers load the Gable on to the Gable ships and install it on the seabed according to the specifications. This paper reviews selected Gable route survey methodologies and proposes change to improve industry best practices