TeleGeography Explains the Internet

Submarine Cable Routing | James Porter

Where do operators physically place their submarine cables, and why does that matter?

Even among those familiar with the undersea cable market, many don't give much thought to where precisely the cables lie on the seafloor and what factors determine this geography.

Today's guest knows a thing or two about how it gets done. We welcome James Porter, Cable Route Engineer at Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN).

James spends his days studying maps to route submarine cables, ensuring ease of maintenance and compliance with guidelines. He joins Greg to discuss the challenges of seabed congestion, particularly in deep-water areas where new cables must be laid at a safe distance from existing ones to ensure they can be repaired in the future.

The pair also discuss:

• The role of the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) and its recommendations for planning new cables to avoid impacting existing systems.
• The complexities of geopolitics and physical geography, which often restrict cable routes and force them into congested choke points.
• The critical need for better communication and data sharing among industry players to more efficiently and safely manage the crowded seabed.

🎧 Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast

💻 TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/

📊 Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

 

The Faults in Our Cables | Alan Mauldin and Mike Constable

When submarine cables hit the mainstream media, it might be because something has gone wrong. Especially when faults lead to a bottleneck that slows down or, in rare cases, even stops internet traffic for some people.

Our guests today presented a paper at SubOptic 25 detailing their study on global submarine cable maintenance and recommendations for the industry.

Mike Constable, Principal at Infra-Analytics, and Alan Mauldin, Research Director here at TeleGeography, joined the pod to discuss their review of cable faults and the readiness of the industry to fix problems over the coming years.

 

🎧 Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast

💻 TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/

📊 Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research 

Sub Cable Security | Ferris Adi

Let's talk about keeping submarine cables secure.

Ferris Adi, Chief Information Security Officer at Trans Americas Fiber System (https://transamericasfiber.com/), joins to discuss specific threats to submarine cables and how best to build resiliency against them.

We also cover various regulatory and compliance issues that submarine cable operators face when landing in different countries, as well as geopolitical threats to cable systems.

🎧 Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast

💻 TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/

📊 Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research 

The Economics of Submarine Cables | Lane Burdette

We're kicking off a brand new mini-series all about *submarine cables.*

To start off the series, we couldn't think of a better guest than Senior Research Analyst Lane Burdette, an expert (and nerd) when it comes to cables. She and host Greg Bryan discuss the economics of submarine cables.

The conversation covers:

• A refresher on the cables themselves, and all of the components that go into building them and lighting them for data transmission service.
• The costs of these elements and how to construct the costs of building a sub cable.
• Who builds these cables and why, and then how cable builders make money on their investment through selling data transmission services, as well as how and why sub cable prices vary around the world.
• How supply and demand are likely to develop in this vast undersea market, and what Lane sees for the future of cable profitability.

🎧 Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast

💻 TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/

📊 Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

614: An FCC Commissioner Explains Spectrum Allocation and Broadband Expansion

Joining us today is FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington.

Commissioner Simington has served on the Commission since late 2020. He brings a diverse background to the role, including experience with the NTIA.

The Commissioner and Host Greg Bryan cover several key issues facing the FCC:

👉 Several issues surrounding spectrum allocation and use. We talk about how FWA and LEO fit in spectrum plans, CBRS, unlicensed spectrum, and, of course, a bit on spectrum auctions.

👉 BIL and broadband development and the role wireless can play in closing the digital divide.

👉 The FCC’s role in submarine cable development and the Commissioner's views on ensuring submarine cable security.

👉 The Cyber Trust Mark and the FCC’s role in securing the ever-expanding threat perimeter and the Commissioner's views on how to get OEMs invested in keeping users safe.

• Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast
• TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/
• Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

 

613: Automate or Bust

We welcome Michael Martin, formerly a global network and security architect at McKinsey. 

Michael has extensive experience in the enterprise network space. We get his take on the industry's state of implementation of network automation among enterprises.

Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast
TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/
Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

612: Lightyear Considers the State of Connectivity

Dennis Thankachan, Co-Founder and CEO of Lightyear (https://lightyear.ai/), is back on the pod.

We discuss Lightyear's State of Connectivity Report (https://lightyear.ai/ebooks/lightyears-state-of-connectivity-2025), which dovetails with the topics we research here at TeleGeography. It may be a perfect companion to our State of the Network effort. (https://www2.telegeography.com/download-state-of-the-network)

Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast
TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/
Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

611: The Podcast Goes Dark! (Dark Fiber, That is)

We haven't been getting enough fiber here at TeleGeography Explains the Internet, but we're about to change that. We welcome Todd Chapman, a veteran in fiber development. Todd walks us through the ins and outs of Layer 0 of the physical infrastructure underlying data transmission.

 

Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast
TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/
Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

610: What You Need to Know About Network as a Service in 2025

Our next guest is Fahim Sabir, Director of Digital Solutions at Colt.

What is NaaS? Fahim joined us to clarify the often confusing world of Network as a Service (NaaS). We discuss Fahim's definition of NaaS and a breakdown of why it's important in the market. We also discuss the back end, examining what the carrier ecosystem needs to accomplish to make customer-facing NaaS a reality.

• Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast
• TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/
• Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research

609: A Telecom Year in Review

As the year ends, a few teammates joined us on the podcast to review the major telecom events of the past 12 months and chat about what we might anticipate in 2025. Some highlights 👇

⛓️‍💥 Analyst Lane Burdette joins the show to review some of the most headline-grabbing trends (https://blog.telegeography.com/what-to-know-about-submarine-cable-breaks) we saw in the submarine cable world.

☁️ While cables keep the continents connected, Principal Analyst Patrick Christian got on the mic to discuss one of the key reasons for that connectivity demand: cloud services.

📈 Of course, data centers underpin the cloud. For that conversation, we welcomed back Senior Manager Jon Hjembo after explaining our new Market Connectivity Score a few weeks ago (https://blog.telegeography.com/a-guide-to-calculating-the-worlds-next-interconnectivity-hub-according-to-you).

🐝 When it came to enterprise networks in 2024, it was hard to have a conversation that didn’t involve NaaS and security (https://blog.telegeography.com/when-networking-and-security-collide), specifically SASE. To talk about the trends surrounding the buzzwords, we had to call on Research Manager Brianna Boudreau.

🌎 So many of these conversations are underpinned by the transport network. To chat about the cost of sending bits around that global network, we were thrilled to welcome Research Director Rob Schult to tell us what was noteworthy in the world of telecom pricing in 2024.

• Podcast HQ: https://www2.telegeography.com/telegeography-explains-the-internet-podcast
• TeleGeography Blog: https://blog.telegeography.com/
• Our Research: https://www2.telegeography.com/en/our-research