Abstract
Undersea optic fibre cable systems are an integral part of the international telecommunications infrastructure for supporting growing marketplace bandwidth needs and they have become a critical component to the constantly evolving Internet traffic content. The issue associated with existing undersea optic fibre cable systems is the scalability of the capacity in meeting and anticipating future capacity demands of the network. In order to meet increased traffic demands, telecoms companies are required to build new systems or upgrade the existing ones in order to address this issue of increased capacity demand. Building an undersea optic fibre cable system is an expensive venture, so much so that the system owners are reluctant to invest in newer optic fibre cable system whilst they have ownership on existing systems. They seek ways in which to optimise the existing system in order to extend the economic lifespan of the system.
The research sought to demonstrate how effective it is to upgrade the existing undersea optic fibre cable systems given the technological advancements, expenditures as opposed to constructing a new undersea optic fibre cable system through a trade-off study of a new build versus upgraded existing undersea optic fibre cable system activities.
It was found that upgrading an existing system to a capacity beyond the original design capacity was achievable through the enablers such as Wavelength Division Multiplex, spectral efficiency, coherent detection, modulation formats and forward error correction techniques. It was found that only the terminal station equipment gets altered whilst the submerged plant remains unchanged, making it possible to optimise the capacity on the existing undersea optic fibre system effectively in a timeous period and enable the exploitation of the increased traffic demand. Whereas to construct a new optic fibre cable system requires huge capital investments and time to implement the system can take a minimum of 24 months without delays, however delays are part and parcel of system construction, delays ranging from obtaining permits, equipment/material delivery, construction of both the submerged and dry plants.
M.Ing. (Engineering Management)