Reply to post: Re: Well you sound smart.

Submarine cables at risk from sea water, boffins warn. Wait, what?

Jellied Eel Silver badge

Re: Well you sound smart.

At least two of them have included one or more major PSTN switches in addition to data switching/routing kit - months to move, years to plan.

Not necessarily.. So a lot depends on the design, and ideally at the design stage, DR should have been a consideration. The basics would be the PFE (Power Feeding Equipment) and SLT (Submarine Laser Terminal) that drive the wet sections. So that's the stuff that may need moving or duplicating, ideally with bypass cabling already installed to an alternate site. One system I worked on had all the 'customer' kit hanging off fibres in London that connected to the landing station in Cornwall.

It gets more complicated with consortia cables where multiple providers may have their own access to fibres, especially on shorter distance/high fibre cables. Or being telecomms, if some bright spark (usually sales) says 'Hey, let's collocate some customer kit in the landing station!' and gets a contract signed before the planners have had a chance to educate them with the nearest cluebat.

But global warming isn't as bigger risk as storm surges given the timescale.

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