Hibernia Atlantic calls for greater awareness of the importance of submarine cables
Hibernia Atlantic says that there are two distinct ways to ensure continuity of submarine cables and both need more attention: 1) Government assistance: designating protection zones, placing several cables in to one bore pipe, restricting fishing activities and increasing military air surveillance. 2) Educating network purchasers about laying out plans for sufficient geographic diversity. Both examples are proactive protection approaches versus reactive. Some countries have already recognized the extreme importance of the communications infrastructure, and have already proposed a call for action and government protection. For example, the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA)'s has announced a new protection regime proposal, restricting and prohibiting certain maritime activities up to 40 nautical miles off the Sydney beaches. These beaches are the limited landing points of some of Australia's most important submarine cables. "Business and community life are now, more than ever, highly reliant on secure communications," states Bjarni Thorvardarson, chief executive officer of Hibernia Atlantic. "The significance of secure links has increased dramatically in the past few years. Current protection schemes are still vague to most, even though global economic infrastructures rest within the cable." Already Hibernia Atlantic works closely with the submarine industry and fishing communities to increase awareness of all cable systems, in order to avoid accidental damage or cuts of submarine cables. Hibernia Atlantic also communicates with the emergency preparedness groups in Canada and all other associated regions. "We at Hibernia Atlantic believe that promoting education on the trans- Atlantic existing communications networks will generate increased submarine security," states Derek Bullock, sr. director of operations and submarine activity for Hibernia Atlantic. "Currently there are only seven modern fiber optic submarine cables in use in the Atlantic Ocean. And all but two of these cables are owned by foreign organizations and a majority of these companies are sharing common backhaul. We need to consider the security of these lines as the highest priority." http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/
•Date: 30th August 2006• Region: Various •Type: Article •Topic: BC general |
