SubOptic has always been proud to present relevant and interesting Roundtable Plenary sessions at our events. SubOptic 2010 to be held in Yokohama, Japan from May 11-14th, 2010 will be no exception.

Our major plenary Roundtable to be moderated by Ed McCormack is intended to offer a view for the future, before attendees depart from the conference. Details of the Roundtable, including panellists is given below.

To set the scene it will be preceded by an invited talk given by Christopher Field, an ancestor of Cyrus Field entitled “A Triumph of Will - Cyrus Field & the Laying of the First Transatlantic Cable,1853 ~ 1866”, which will help put our current challenges into perspective and show how with the correct approach they can be overcome.

Plenary Roundtable to be held on the morning of May 14th, 2010:

“Over the Horizon - The Future of the Industry: An Industry Leaders Forum”

Moderator:  Ed McCormack (Managing Director, MC Corporate Services, UK)

Panellists:

    * Stephen B Alexander (Chief Technology Officer; Senior Vice President, Products & Technology, Ciena)
    * Owen Best (President Asia, Reliance Globalcom)
    * Ian Douglas (Managing Director, Global Marine Telecoms Business Unit)
    * Philippe Dumont (President & Chief Executive Officer, Alcatel Submarine Networks)
    * Samuel Lee (President, Equinix Asia-Pacific)
    * Brian T. Tellam (Principal, Cornerstone Capital Partners)

 
Executive Summary:  If we take a step back and look at our industry today, we might well give ourselves a round of applause, or a pat on the back.  It has recovered from the great crash of 2001 ~ 2003.  It is laying more kilometres of submarine cable than at any time in history.  If we look for one word, 'buoyant' is the one which comes to mind.  We should be happy with the state of the industry in the past few years - but we certainly have no need to be smug - and we ought to ask “why has it been a positive period?”

Well, firstly the industry's engineers have delivered multiple improvements in technology.  The performance improvement in the laboratories has been astounding - and these have generally been translated into real commercial systems in increasingly short time-scales.  Perhaps it is even enough to make Mr Moore wonder whether his famous law seriously underestimated the reality.  Either way, the ability to create real improvements in capacity and cost per bit has been impressive.  Fortunately, as any student of YouTube will tell you, that has been matched by the ability for society to consume the bandwidth.  And that has not always been the case in the past.

Secondly, these developments were supported, if not driven, by liberalization across the continents, and commercialization of the agreements under which most cable systems are developed.

The typical bottlenecks which existed in the delivery chain have moved closer to the consumer.  At one stage, the bottleneck was in the five-year time-scale to develop a submarine cable;  then it moved to the landing stations;  then to the city POP;  and now it is generally moving to what we call “the last mile”.  The final impediments to delivering service are being cast aside.  With the benefit of regulation and investment new technologies have emerged to provide broadband to the end user.

But as we experience continuing massive increases in demand, do we really need to worry?  Unfortunately yes!  The advances are primarily around the equipage of the system.  As a system installer will tell you, the development and installation of a subsea cable is still a lengthy, challenging and capital-intensive endeavour. Added to that, the resultant system needs to deliver returns over the long term and in the face of continuing technological advancements.  The time to market for a cable system often leaves the door wide open to new competitors, and this is an industry where the advantage often rests with the second entrant as opposed to the pioneer.

Coupled with the rapidly advancing technological environment, this challenges the development of systems with commercial debt.  As a result, most systems are funded on a pure equity basis.  This situation needs to change, particularly to support the under-developed parts of the world.

Finally, we always need to bear in mind that success is usually determined by the availability of applications to consume the supply that we create.  In this industry, the ultimate demand for its services is somewhat remote from the supply.  On the demand side, guaranteed end-to-end service delivery is paramount to focus on bandwidth intensive applications such as content distribution, video streaming, and private networks – all delivered with High Definition resolution.  Close engagement with the demand side is critical to provide what the customer is ultimately prepared to pay for.

This is the time to reflect and reassess.  This is also the time to speculate and to challenge the scenarios in live debate with the Leaders who are influential in shaping that future of our industry.  This is the time to look “Over the Horizon” at the SubOptic 2010 Leaders Forum plenary Round Table.

The panel for this session comprises a diverse group of top level executives and board members from the key stakeholders in the industry –  including financiers; developers; installers; providers of Next Generation Network technologies; Data Centre operators, and maintenance providers.  Some of the names are current leaders in the Submarine business – and have the scars to prove it.  Others may be new, but nevertheless play a key role in influencing where a cable may land; supporting its economics with provision of key services, or extending its life with technological enhancements.

Join us at the Leaders' Forum plenary round table on Friday 14 May, to both listen and to have your say.