Let's Talk about Cables (and the vessels that lay them)
If you listen to me talk long enough eventually you will hear about cables.
I love cables. Cables are very important. My favourite ones to talk about though are undersea cables, without a doubt. I talk about them a lot, more than almost any man should be talking about them.
The network of undersea cables that currently stretch across the ocean floor represent one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure on planet Earth. They are the backbone of the information superhighway, transiting scores of data across continents.
Cables are important, very important. There are over 1.5 million kilometers of submarine cables in service globally, spread across over 600 individual lines. These lines can be as short as tens of kilometers to as long as tens of thousands!
Modern Fibre-Optic cables are responsible for transiting as much as 99% of internet traffic. Modern High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cables are the backbone of the offshore energy grid, and increasingly important as Canada explores more offshore energy production through projects like Wind West.
For the sake of today we will not be focusing on Energy cables specifically, although a lot of what we discuss can apply to these cables as well. You can take the concept here and apply them either way.
Modern internet cables, as I will be referring to them as, are actually quite small, smaller than many think. They're usually only as big as your ordinary garden hose, strung as far as 5000m deep along the ocean floor.
At the centre of these cables is the glass core. This ultra-pure silica core is thinner than a human hair, and carries data as beams of light across the cables. This silica core is surrounded by cladding that keeps that light trapped inside. This allows the cables to transmit data at high speeds while minimizing the potential loss that could be incurred.
Because these delicate fibres are placed on the ocean floor, it’s wrapped in multiple protective layers. This includes polymer coatings for cushioning, steel wires or Kevlar-like materials for tensile strength, metal sheathing like copper or aluminum for power and waterproofing, and finally a rugged polyethylene exterior.
These cables are layered as such to protect them against the multitude of different threats that risk damaging or cutting the cables entirely. This can include things like natural disasters, anchors, storms, marine activity, and even the pressure of the Ocean itself.
Modern cables are powerful, able to transfer data in the hundreds of terabits per second. AWS Fastnet cable, which is set to start operations in 2028, will be able to move 320+ terabits per second!
We've come a long way from the first cables, built in the mid-1800s of Copper, Gutta-Percha, and Hemp. Canada was actually home to the first transatlantic cable, linking Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, to Valentia Island, Ireland.
This was set out by the Atlantic Telegraph Company under the vision of American businessman Cyrus Field. Cyrus had been brought into the cable business when he met Frederick N. Gisborne, a British Inventor responsible for laying the first undersea cable in North America connecting New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Gisborne is an oft forgotten member of Canada’s Inventive history. At the startlingly young age of eighteen, he would leave home for a journey that would take him to the edges of the known world, specifically Tahiti and the Society Islands in 1842.
In 1845, Gisborne arrived in Canada, accompanied by his brother, Hartley. They settled initially in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, attempting to live the life of the average settler by taking up farming.
However, Gisborne was ill-suited for the agrarian life; his mind was mechanical, not agricultural. Realizing that the quiet life of a farmer would not satisfy his ambition or his interests, he abandoned the farm in 1847 and moved to Montreal.
He joined the Montreal Telegraph Company just as the technology was beginning to electrify the continent, and he found he had a prodigious natural talent for it, quickly becoming one of the most competent operators in fledgling North America.
His reputation grew rapidly, leading the government of Nova Scotia to poach him in 1849 to serve as the superintendent of their government telegraph lines. It was here, staring out at the Atlantic from Halifax, that Gisborne began to see the Maritimes as a bridge to Transatlantic communications.
He became obsessed with the "short route", the idea that by connecting Newfoundland to the mainland, news from Europe could be intercepted days before ships reached New York. He was instrumental in forming the St. John's and Continent Telegraph Company, but the ambition of the project far outstripped the technology of the day.
The years leading up to 1852 were characterized by brutal physical hardship that was characteristic of the Inventors and engineers of the time. To prove the route was viable, Gisborne personally led a survey expedition across the interior of Newfoundland in 1851.
It was a disaster of endurance. The terrain was a nightmare of bogs and rock; his team faced starvation, and his indigenous guides eventually deserted the party, leaving Gisborne and a few companions to drag their equipment through the wilderness alone.
He emerged from the Newfoundland bush alive, but the financial reality was grim. The company collapsed under the weight of the debt incurred by these massive infrastructure attempts, leaving Gisborne destitute.
It was this spectacular failure—and the loss of his own assets—that forced a desperate, bankrupt Gisborne to travel to New York in 1854, maps in hand to the hands of Cyrus Field.
Field was not a scientist, nor an engineer. He was a paper merchant. By the age of 34, he had already retired with a fortune of roughly $250,000, having built an empire on the unglamorous trade of wholesale paper. Exciting, I know.
Gisborne was looking for support in building a second line connecting New York to St. John, something the bored and excitable Cyrus took to the project almost immediately. He would help found the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company, along with the likes of Peter Cooper, a Glue mogul, if you could believe that and Moses Taylor, director of the company that would become Citibank in 1954 to take on this task.
It was under them that a line would end up being established between New York and St. John in 1856, but Cyrus had bigger ambitions as you know, and almost immediately began planning for the first Transatlantic cable.
That year Cyrus would found the Atlantic Telegraph Company and with the support of both the British and American governments would undertake his first attempts in 1857.
The British sent HMS Agamemnon and the United States sent USS Niagara, each fitted with rudimentary cable-laying equipment to begin the process of laying the line.
The process was not easy. Numerous breaks and cuts across the line forced multiple attempts to take place. The effort was so difficult that abandoning the project was considered several times, however, a last ditch attempt in 1858 would see both vessels reach their destination, albeit damaged and feared to already be deteriorated to the point of uselessness.
However that would turn out to not be the case. Despite all this the cable actually managed to last three weeks, from August 13 to September 18 transmitting over two hundred messages across the Atlantic. This included exchanges between President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria!
The first cables are a testament to human ingenuity and dedication. No modern technology. No modern cable-laying vessels. Despite several failures in the process, and the cables short life the endeavour proved that the concept of a Transatlantic cable was possible.
It would take until 1866 for Cyrus to fully realize his endeavour when a cable was established between Heart's Content, Newfoundland and Valentia Island, Ireland. This would mark the start of permanent Transatlantic communications.
Gisborne, who had effectively pushed out of the Transatlantic project, had returned to the one thing he knew better than anyone: the Newfoundland landscape. He pivoted from being an Inventor to a prospector, raising capital for the St. John's United Copper and Lead Mining Company.
He spent several years exploring the wildest coasts of Newfoundland, from Cape Ray to the Strait of Belle Isle. But this endeavour was soon cut short. In 1861, while deep in the bush exploring mineral deposits, Gisborne suffered a severe gunshot wound. What happened? An accident apparently. The details are scant but it was catastrophic enough to end his days as a physical adventurer.
He could no longer trek through bogs or haul through the bush. The injury forced him to retreat to England to recover, marking the end of his era as an adventurer.
While recovering he became the Commissioner for Newfoundland at the 1862 International Exhibition. Gisborne returned to Canada in 1869, initially to run coal mines in Cape Breton (where he modernized the port of Sydney and built railways). But his vindication finally arrived in 1879, when the Canadian Government appointed him the Superintendent of the Dominion Telegraph and Signal Service.
He spent his final decade wiring the impossible geography of the new Canadian Confederation. He rebuilt the telegraph systems in British Columbia and constructed a vital cable network in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for fisheries and weather forecasting.
When he died in Ottawa in 1892, he was sitting at his desk, planning a Trans-Pacific cable—a final, massive link to Asia that he would never see completed. He died as he lived: plotting a line across a map that everyone else said was too big to cross.
A quiet, somber end to a man who helped pave the way for the massive networks of cables we see today. A true Canadian Innovator, pushing the limits of what possible. A man who set the stage for stringing empires and oceans together.
By the turn of the century dozens of new cables had been set along the sea floor, totalling almost 200,000km. A consortium of AT&T, France Télécom, and British Telecom would lay the first Fibre-optic cable, TAT-8 in 1988. The old networks of copper have long been replaced by these modern cables.
I think its important to recognize this early history, and to speak of these stories. The laying of these first cables, and the men that built them, are an important piece of Canadian history. They are built of the back of Canadian Innovation and the early work done here to connect the Atlantic provinces together.
The history starts in the wilderness of Newfoundland, the streets of St. John. It is an inherently Canadian story, even if we were pushed out from the history books. Its good to recognize men like Gisborne, who's passion and adventurous spirit might have been pushed out of the network he dreamed of, but who still set the stage for the interconnected nation we now have.
Of course this is not a deciated history post, so we sadly cannot get into everything. For that there are numerous resources, such as the SubTel Forum Magazine and History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications website that I recommend you check out.
The status of cables today.
Before we get to the Canadian side of things, I think its best to lay the ground for the modern network we see today. You already know how these cables work now, and how big the modern network is. Let's get into the gritty details of it though.
As we said before the modern Fibre-Optic network is massive. Most of the modern cable infrastructure we see are products of the Dot Com bubble, perhaps the most dynamic and chaotic period of Subsea construction.
Of course to go into the Dot Com bubble in full would add thousands of words to this already long piece, and it is not our focus today. However I'll give the brief rundown in case you are unfamiliar.
The Dot Com bubble is an era spanning roughly from 1997 to 2002. It is characterized by the widescale adoption of the World Wide Web. This rapid rise led to the massive influx of new technology and Internet based startups all looking to capitalize on the revolution of mass Internet connectivity.
Riding the high of a bolstering 1990s economy startups and Investors rode the proceeding wave without much care for the actual viability of many of these startups, many of whom would never generate any revenue, instead riding on the hype and promise that the future digital economy would propel them to unseen heights.
At the same time as this was occurring the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, opening the door for private cable companies to enter into the market. Spurred on the traffic doubling myth, which claimed that internet traffic was doubling every 100 days, cable companies and the manufacturers supplying them played an endless game of ring-around-the-rosie with each other.
Companies like Nortel lent billions of dollars to cable companies like Global Crossing and 360networks to purchase equipment, expecting that the Internet wave would keep on going. This era was what led Nortel to become Canada's most valuable company at its peak in 2000 (only to file for bankruptcy in 2009 when everything collapsed).
Tens of thousands of new kilometers of cable were laid to feed into this future digital economy, only for it all to come crashing down when the bubble finally burst in 2000. When the bubble burst, it was estimated that only a small fraction (often cited as less than 5%) of the available fiber capacity was actually "lit" or in use, leaving vast amounts of "dark fiber" dormant on the ocean floor.
Major operators like Global Crossing and 360networks filed for bankruptcy, their vast networks sold for pennies on the dollar. This bandwidth glut, where the available supply far outstripped demand, led to a collapse of the cable-laying Industry overnight. An effect we're still seeing today.
But we'll get into that in a bit. Obviously I'm skipping a lot, but again this is a series in itself. All you need to know for the context here is that a lot of modern infrastructure was set in this era, and it's collapse is why certain parts of the Industry are still struggling.
That's important for us later, but for now let's look at the current Industry. The current Subsea industry has been slowly in the rebound. Driven by the rise of things like mass social networks, Artificial Intelligence (Al), and the global energy transition the Industry has been further catapulted off the backs of large Internet providers like Meta and Google expanding their own infrastructure networks.
The legacy cables from the late 1990s and early 2000s are being slowly decommissioned due to rising maintenance costs and inefficient power usage, replaced by high-count fiber systems capable of transmitting hundreds of terabits per second (Tbps).
A recent report by Suboptic claims that Global cable kilometers will increase 48%, with annual repairs expected to increase 36% from 2025-2040. This is in spite of nearly a million kilometers of subsea cables being set to be decommissioned by 2040, the majority of which will be the next decade.
As we said the largest demand for submarine cable capacity are no longer telecom operators but the creators of the data itself. Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, and Amazon have moved from being customers to being owners.
As of 2023, these content and cloud networks accounted for more than 70% of all international bandwidth usage. This is a staggering increase from less than 10% just over a decade ago.
These networks, primarily Alphabet, have been building out their own private cable infrastructure for some time. Alphabet alone is involved in ownership stakes in at least 33 submarine cables, including the recent Topaz line, the first Trans-Pacific fibre line directly linking Canada to Asia.
Other recently announced additions include Sol, a new Transatlantic line linking the U.S. to Spain and TalayLink linking Australia to Asia via Thailand. By owning the entire cable, networks gain total control over routing, latency, and security.
They are far from the only ones though. We already mentioned Amazon's Fastnet line earlier. Meta is one of eight members in the 2Africa line, the longest subsea cable ever built. It also has been rapidly expanding it's Indo-Pacific infrastructure through multiple new lines like Echo, Bifrost, Apricot, and now Candle which will be the largest capacity cable system in the Indo-Pacific when complete, with a whooping 570 terabits per second (Tbps) of capacity.
These network giants, the Hyperscalers as they're called represent just around 50% of the overall global investment in subsea cables. Their share though continues to grow, and is expected to only get higher as the widescale adoption of things like Artificial Intelligence continues to push demands higher.
But these companies don't install these cables themselves. They don't manufacture them. For that we have to go deeper, into the Oligarchical world of Subsea cable installers. Get ready, because here's where it gets interesting.
The Big four
The global market for the manufacturing and installation of fiber-optic cables is dominated by four firms. These entities—SubCom, Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), NEC Corporation, and HMN Technologies collectively manufacture and install approximately 98% of the world's undersea cables.
Alcatel is Headquartered in France and is considered the volume leader in the industry. Between 2020 and 2024, Alcatel was responsible for supplying approximately 34% of all new subsea cable systems globally. The company operates a fully integrated model, manufacturing cable at its massive facility in Calais, France, and installing it via its own fleet of seven vessels. As of late last year the French government is the majority owner of the company, having acquired an 80% ownership stake from Nokia.
SubCom (formerly TE SubCom), based in the United States is the preferred partner for U.S. government contracts and major hyperscaler projects funded by American tech giants. The company has benefited greatly from the 2020 Clean Network initiatives, which aims to exclude Chinese suppliers from critical networks. They operate a fleet of eight cable ships.
Japan's NEC Corporation constitutes the third pillar of the Western-aligned supplier triumvirate. With a market share estimated in the 15-20% range, NEC is the dominant force in the Asia-Pacific region especially thanks to the efforts of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience (QPCCR). Unlike the other two, NEC primarily relies on KDDI Cableships & Subsea Engineering and NTT World Engineering Marine to provide vessels.
Lastly we have HMN Technologies, formerly Huawei Marine Networks. They are the primary challenger to the Western triumvirate. Despite holding a historical market share of roughly 10% between 2020 and 2024, the company has been hit hard by ongoing U.S. sanctions and is expected to fall to as low as 4% over the coming years. Like NEC they also charter vessels instead of maintaining a dedicated fleet, primarily through S.B.Submarine Systems.
Together these four represent what many would call an Oligarchy. They are far from the only companies operating in the sector, however as you can see those that are remain so small that they are nearly irrelevant to the global conversation as a whole.
However we can't talk about these companies without talking about the vessels. While a handful of companies, including those we already mentioned, represent a large chunk of the global fleet, the raw numbers themselves tell an Interesting story.
According to that same previously mentioned SubOptic report, there are 62 Cable-Laying vessels in service globally. The report says that this is composed of roughly 60% purpose-built vessels, with approximately 80% having been commissioned more than two decades ago.
The average age globally is about 25 years old. That same report also has a really cute graph for how many vessels are dedicated to installation and maintenance as of 2025. Check it out!
It also Includes this average age graph for each category. The vast majority of younger vessels are dedicated to installation, which drives the average age down significantly compared to those dedicated to maintenance.
Many of the more recent maintenance vessels, around 70% have been conversions rather than dedicated builds. In fact between 2004 and 2010 there were no new cable-laying vessels commissioned globally. By 2015 there had only been five new vessels commissioned. Many of the current fleet is comprised of vessels built for the Dot Com boom.
I highly recommend reading the whole report as it is a wonderful glimpse into the current state of the Industry. What we have is an Industry coming out of a dark period, faced with a rapidly decaying network set up over twenty years ago and the need to fill the demands of yet another boom.
All of this propped up by a global fleet rapidly facing decommissioning and breaking down in the next decade. This at a time when Subsea Infrastructure is under a very real, ever increasing security threat from our adversaries.
And of course we have to talk about the security threat...
The Asymmetric world
Eventually I will stop mentioning Asymmetric every week. This isnt that week. Everyone knows how highly I rank the risk of an adversary or non-state actor taking advantages of the rapidly accessible and commercialized advancements in things such as additive manufacturing, artifical Intelligence, and energy storage.
In simple terms? Battery systems are getting smaller and more capable. Think things like Li-Ion or even Hydrogen cells. This allowed for smaller and smaller vessels, such as Uncrewed Underwater Vehicles, something we talked about last week, to remain on station for sometimes months at a time.
Future developments in things like Sodium and Solid State batteries will further expand upon the capacity that these systems have, allowing for longer ranges, higher endurance, and bigger payloads.
Additive Manufacturing, or 3D printing for us normies allows for bad actors to rapidly print, test and perfect systems for use in Asymmetric attacks. Right now we primarily think about small drones and things like Operation Spiderweb, the Ukrainian attack this year on Russia’s Strategic Bomber fleet.
However future developments will push these limits even farther. We can already commercialize such operations in garages, containers, and even the back of trucks. The real advancements will come in the development of new, stronger materials like high-performance polymers, composites, the development of more efficient multi-material printing, and the widespread commercialization of metal additive manufacturing.
All of which present the problem of much more capable, much more expansive systems and products getting out there. Systems that our adversaries will gladly take advantage of to target things like ports, bases, critical Infrastructure like powerlines, railways, and roads...
And of course the delicate network of subsea cables keeping us all together.
Subsea cables being targeted by Asymmetric attacks are perhaps the one area where we do have very clear, very present threats pushing against us. In fact the recent string of attacks that we have seen have been the primary driver behind a lot of the recent developments we're seeing.
I use Asymmetric, but I know someone will yell at me for not using Grey-Zone. I'm gonna be real. Thats a lot to type, and I don't like how it sounds. So consider this an acknowledgement of the term, but I'm gonna keep using Asymmetric. Come fight me Academics.
Anyways, I assume that many of you have heard of the proliferation of cable cutting across the world, primarily in the Baltics. It is a genuine, rising threat that continues to put a panicked eye on our collective vulnerabilities in protecting this critical Infrastructure.
Historically fishing incidents and anchors accounted for approximately 70-75% of all cable faults annually, with natural disasters accounting for another 10-15%. Malicious, targeted attacks have historically been a rarity.
Since the start of the War in Ukraine though the number of such attacks has rapidly Increased.
In the Baltic Sea in particular a pattern of "anchor dragging" incidents has been occurring. The campaign began in October 2023 when the Chinese-owned, Hong Kong-flagged Newnew Polar Bear dragged its anchor for over 100 nautical miles, severing the Baltic Connector gas pipeline and two telecommunications cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden.
While Chinese authorities later admitted the vessel was responsible, they characterized it as an accidental result of a storm. This pattern escalated in November 2024, when the Yi Peng 3, a Chinese bulk carrier captained by a Russian national, severed the C-Lion1 cable (Finland-Germany) and the BCS East-West Interlink (Sweden-Lithuania). The vessel dragged its anchor for nearly 150 kilometers before being intercepted by the Danish Navy.
The most recent and incident occurred on December 25, 2024, when the Eagle S—an oil tanker belonging to the "shadow fleet" used to evade Russian sanctions—severed the Estlink 2 power cable and multiple data cables. Finnish special forces boarded and seized the vessel in the Gulf of Finland, marking the first hostile boarding by Finnish troops since World War II.
Of course many of these incidents are still in the court system, particularly Eagle S. Others such as the Yi Peng 3 incident have been ruled to be likely accidentally in nature. Not everyone is convinced though, and the spur of Incidents back to back has raised severe alarm to the vulnerability of current networks.
In Asia though, cable cutting has been weaponized as a tool of against Taiwan, often described as a digital blockade. In February 2023, the two subsea cables connecting the Matsu Islands to Taiwan were severed within six days of each other by a Chinese fishing boat and a sand dredger, resulting in a near-total communications blackout for the islands that lasted over 50 days.
These Incidents have been characterized as far more likely to be Intentional in nature. Chinese vessels have been observed operation with Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) disabled and execute 'zigzag' maneuvers over cable routes, both tactics common when trying to purposefully sever a cable.
Even we are not safe from such Incidents. Bell's APOCS 2 line between Dingwall and Codroy was severed twice last year, one on January 4th and a second time on December 24th. Both times deliberately. To quote the CTV article on the Incident:
“We found that it was cut by humans,” Joice said in an interview Wednesday. “And what was really difficult about this, because it’s a huge investment, is we found that it was deliberately cut for the second time by humans.”
Now there is no proof that this was maliciously Intended. However it does, again, show the risks that are present in these cables, that twice in one year these cables can be cut without notice, severing one of the key links in Atlantic Canada.
Similar Incidents have occurred elsewhere here, such as fishing vessels accidently severing cables. That is again quite common, and often go unreported. Yet one can't deny the concerning, ever present threat that deliberate targeting presents.
Western States are listening, and in some cases taking drastic actions to secure the critical assets needed to protect these cables and their supply chains. We already talked about France's acquisition of an 80% majority stake in Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) from Nokia, a move seen as securing a strategic piece of national Infrastructure.
NATO stood up the Maritime Centre for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure (CUI) last year and earlier this year launched Operation Baltic Sentry which involves the persistent deployment of frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, and mine countermeasures vessels to monitor and protect critical subsea Infrastructure in the Baltics.
At the same time the EU has released the EU Action Plan on Cable Security, which sets out the EUs approach to cable development and security. This includes the establishment of a Cable Projects of European Interest (CPEI) list, the development of a Cable Security Toolbox, and new funding mechanisms to support cable laying and security Initiatives.
Of course I'm keeping everything short, though I have included links for those of you who wish to deep dive these Initiatives. There is a lot more going on that I have not listed on the Individual level, however I do want to highlight at least a few of these major Initiatives.
The UK has also acquired RFA Proteus and the now HMS Sterling Castle under the Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance (MROSS) Program specifically for Unmanned Testing and Subsea monitoring. The Italians similarly plan to acquire their own dedicated vessel through converting a civilian hull.
The United States navy has USNS Zeus, it's only cable ship. She was commissioned in 1984, and a replacement is currently in the RFI stage through the T- ARC(X) program. That has been in the works for a few years now.
The point is that our allies are making the efforts to both lockdown on existing networks and to rapidly acquire new assets to protect them. We are seeing both NATO and especially the EU recognize not just the need to protect existing assets but also to expand upon current infrastructure, building out new connections, redundancies and failsafes.
Canada, in comparison has been non-existent on this front. We have done some discussions, and have been doing minimal work in collaboration with allies, however on a whole-of-government level we might as well be doing next to nothing.
To get into that though, we once again need to take a step back and learn a bit about Canada’s current network and capabilities.
Oh Canada
Now that we all know a bit about the wonderful world of cables and the vessels that lay them, we can finally get a snapshot into Canada and the current status of our own infrastructure.
Canada maintains several critical cable networks, along with several interprovincial links on top of them. To make sure you're caught up, its time for a lightning round off all these cables, so buckle up!
We already mentioned Topaz, Canada’s Trans-Pacific link to Asia. Topaz came online in 2023 connecting Port Alberni and Vancouver to Shima and Takahagi. It remains Canada’s only direct link to Asia.
Of course it isn't the only cable on the West Coast. AmeriCan-1, owned by a consortium of Bell Canada, Ledcor Industries Inc., Rogers Communications, and Zayo runs through the Salish Sea and Strait of Georgia connecting Washington to British Columbia.
The newest and biggest of the West Coast network remains Connected Coast, a 3,500km subsea network running along the BC coast. It circles Vancouver Island and runs up the coast to Haida Gwaii and Prince Rupert. It will provide a critical redundancy for Northern BC. Before this, if the single land-based fibre line along Highway 16 was cut the entirety of Northern BC risked disconnection from the network.
It will connect roughly 139 communities, including 48 Indigenous communities. That includes relatively small, isolated places like Winter Harbour, Oona River, and Kitkatla.
While the network has been mostly laid work is still ongoing to set up the connections to local communities, something that is hoped to be completed next year.
On the East Coast the primary Transatlantic network remains the EXA links North, South and Express. All of which land in Halifax. One the other side Express lands in Cork, Ireland and Brean, UK while North and South have landings in Dublin, Ireland, Coleraine, and Southport, UK
Express is the newest line, having come online in September of 2015. North and South are Dot Com babies, with South going down into the United States instead of ending in Halifax.
They are owned by EXA Infrastructure. The company was established in 2021 when I Squared Capital acquired the network from GTT Communications.
There is another transatlantic line in Greenland Connect, which effectively serves as Greenland's digital lifeline, physically linking the island to North America and Europe. Owned by the state-run telecom provider Tusass (formerly TELE Greenland), the line runs from Newfoundland to Nuuk and Qaqortoq, Greenland, and then onward to Landeyjar, Iceland.
This line went live in 2009 and serves as a "redundancy route" for transatlantic traffic, offering a northern alternative for data flowing between North America and Europe that bypasses the congested and vulnerable cable corridors further south in the Atlantic.
Outside the Transatlantic links Bell, Eastlink and Telus all maintain various lines connecting the Atlantic provinces. Bell maintains the APOCS lines between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, as well as APOCS-2 in the Bay of Fundy. Eastlink maintains the Persona line running from Cape Breton.
Hydro-Québec and Telus maintain the Sunoque cables in the St. Lawrence, including the future Sunoque-III currently in development.
Tamaani Internet is in the process of building out the Eastern Arctic Underwater Fibre Optic Network, a strategic link connecting the Northern communities of the Hudson Coast. The work is currently being undertaken by the Kativik Regional Government and government of Nunavut to eventually extend this line to other communities in the Arctic like Iqaluit through the Kivalliq-Baffin Connector Fibre Project.
The first two phases of this project are already done, with the third linking communities in the Eastern Hudson currently scheduled for completion in 2027.
Still keeping up? Good! You now have a basic understanding of all the Important cables in Canada, and are now ready to hear about all the Issues and fixes I can think of for the network.
"But Noah, what about Cable-Laying vessels in Canada?"
Good question, although it highlights an Issue. There is currently one company in Canada that maintains Cable-Laying vessels in Canada. That is IT International Telecom out of Halifax.
IT maintains three vessels - IT Integrity, IT Intrepid, and IT Infinity. Infinity is the youngest of the three at 17 years old, while Intrepid, built 1989, is nearing forty years old. Integrity if youre curious is 24 years old herself, about middle aged.
While based in Halifax you can often find one of these girls on the West Coast. Right now Integrity is over there. These three represent the entirety of Canada’s domestic Cable-Laying fleet, outside vessels that could be rapidly adapted or converted to the role. They are not counted.
So now, after over four thousand words we are ready to finally start talking about the situation itself. If you can't tell where this is going, I am not confident in the current status of things.
The gaps
At the end of the day the situation in Canada is not dissimilar to what many other countries are going through. Critical cable Infrastructure is owned primarily by private entities, outside the purview and control of government entities.
Canada lacks the capability at this time to properly monitor and respond to threats to our cable Infrastructure. Future additions to the navy and Coast Guard fleet, such as the Multipurpose Icebreakers, will help greatly in this regard if the work is done to make sure they're equipped to handle these threats.
The AOPS also present a versatile platform that could be used in the role if desired, however the small size of the fleet and the ever increasing demand for them will see the fleet stretched thin for the foreseeable future.
The available vessels that can actually undertake Cable-Laying and repair are limited domestically, aging, and can't always be guaranteed available. This is especially true if, in a conflict scenario, multiple cables both intercontinental and interprovincial are targeted.
Besides that we also have the global issues of aging fleets across the board, and even if our allies do have access to such vessels, we have no promises that they would be available to us. Public vessels are also lacking, with much of the global fleet privately-owned.
For cables themselves there is a glaring lack of available connections in the Arctic. While focus right now remains on improving satellite connectivity through networks like Telesat Lightspeed there is no true replacement to a proper Fibre-Optic line.
This will be especially important in the coming years when talking about Arctic surveillance and communications. While modern UUV like those being looked at through the Uncrewed Underwater Surveillance System (UUSS) project have ways of transmitting data and relaying info, none would be quite as good as having direct access to an Interconnected Fibre line.
Proposals do exist mind you. The Great Circle, the shortest point of connection between Asia and Europe runs straight through the Arctic, and with Russia out of the question do to Ukraine, now lies with the Northwest Passage. It's mere existence is enough to garner Interest.
Far North Fiber is the one you will likely hear the most about. It came out of the Arctic Connect project that aimed to create a Asia-Europe link that ran through the Northern Sea Route. Obviously that aint happening now, so the project has shifted to the alternative Archipelago.
The cable would run from Japan, through the Bering Strait, land in Alaska (creating a mesh with the existing Quintillion network), then the Canadian Northwest Passage before crossing the Atlantic to land in Ireland and Northern Norway (with connections to Finland).
The consortium building the line includes the Finnish Cinia Oy, Alaskan-based Far North Digital (and its Canadian affiliate True North Global Networks) and the Japanese ARTERIA Networks Corporation. Alcatel will be the provider and layer for the project.
The project has received funding from the EU's Connecting Europe Facility and is aiming for an in-service date of 2027. However there is still much work to be done.
Setting up such cable systems in the Arctic does present some challenges, big ones. For one there is a lack of Polar-capable Cable-Layers. They don't really exist.
You could convert existing Icebreakers or Ice-strengthened vessels to do it, and Indeed such discussions have happened. However they are only early discussions. This adds another complexity to the project, especially when it comes to potential repairs and maintenance work in the future.
The Archipelago, by virtue of being the Archipelago is a complex, difficult hellscape, for lack of better words. The Archipelago sucks for just about everything. It is one of the harshest environments on Earth for a reason, that Includes cables.
The NWP features significant stretches of relatively shallow continental shelf. The cable route must climb from the deep Beaufort Sea (4,683 m) to the shallow shelf of the passage (approx. 400 m) before dropping back into the Baffin Basin (over 2,700 m)
It must contend with the risks of damage and cutting from the keels of massive icebergs or pressure ridges that can drag along the seabed. It must also inevitably deal with an Increasingly busy Archipelago and the potential for damage from Increased traffic. All of which are major risks if you don't have the vessels capable of repairing the line for a large chunk of the year.
Of course the future Coast Guard fleet will help mitigate some of these Issues with the inclusion of the Program and Polar Icebreakers, but they're only one half of the solution. They don't solve things in entirety.
Other proposals for Arctic cables do exist, but few go the full route of the Northwest passage. SednaLink is one, running from Sheshatshiu/Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Labrador, north along the coast to serve Nunatsiavut communities (such as Nain and Makkovik), and cross the sea to land in Iqaluit, Nunavut.
So there is a lot of activity in the Hudson shores area, though little progress has been made elsewhere. There are a few other Indigenous proposals scattered around the place, though none that are beyond the initial conversation, and still many years out.
The one line we do has isn't exactly Canadian. It is Finnish-American-Japanese. It is not the Sovereign capability that we're looking for in the Arctic. That is not what I am after here.
Of course we should have a cable running through the length of the passage, and in turn aim to connect the various coastal communities of the Arctic to this line. Such has already been recommended by the Standing Committee on National Defence in it's April 2023 report: A Secure and Sovereign Arctic.
Recommendation 17 asks "That the Government of Canada work with Indigenous-led corporations for the provision of subsea fiber optic and other information technology infrastructure projects to provide increased and affordable Internet coverage across the Arctic."
I have always been one to say that the best Investments one can make in the Arctic are not military-related but Instead focus in Integration into the wider country. Integration through finance, commerce, energy, communities.
Such a cable would serve the dual-purpose of provide terabit-capable, low-latency connectivity to Northern communities while also providing the CAF and in turn government of Canada as a whole, with a Canadian-controlled fibre network that can contribute to Arctic Surveillance and our commitments under NORAD Modernization.
It's not just about Integrating these communities into the digital economy, although that is certainly one benefit, allowing them to become digital exporters on the global market as opposed to merely consumers.
Its about Quality of Life as well. All Canadians should have access to this kind of digital infrastructure. All Canadians should have access to reliable, high-speed connections that allow them the opportunity to thrive and live comfortably.
Its not just about personal use. Its the ability, for example, for clinics in these Isolated communities to send heavy diagnostic data like MRI/CT scans to specialists in real-time. It's about allowing real-time connectivity to communities in the event of disaster or to assist in things like Search-and-Rescue.
Oftentimes we, especially those of us with the privilege of having such connections, can forget just how life-changing this kind of connectivity can be. We can forget how much of a game-changer it can be for communities who might have been shut out of the digital world and all it's benefits because they lack those connections.
From a security perspective such a cable provides the backbone of a true Arctic surveillance network. It would allow things like Autonomous Systems and sensors to be directly integrated into the network, allowing real-time data transmitting directly into the future cloud.
Modern cables aren't just for transmitting data though. Innovations in things like Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) turn this cable into a persistent, passive surveillance array across the Northwest Passage.
We know in any conflict that the targeting of Space-based assets will be one of the first moves our adversaries make to deny us connectivity. For the Arctic, where these constellations are the primary provider a cable line presents a physical, resistant alternative that ensures that the North remains connected.
It won't be easy. It won't be simple. We have already discussed these challenges, yet we know that it is a needed piece of Infrastructure. There are some things where the risks and costs become secondary to the value of creating strategic Infrastructure.
That also means we do need to talk about the vessels themselves. As we said before there are three such vessels in Canada dedicated to maintaining the Fibre-Optic network. These vessels are either at the mid-stage of their life or close to retirement age.
We have already seen countries like France move to nationalize control of these fleets with their acquisition of Alcatel. I don't think we need to go that far here. We don't need to seize IT and their limited fleet. We do however need to acknowledge that maintaining domestic, Canadian-registered vessels is a critical piece of Infrastructure.
Japan is in the process of funding the acquisition of vessels by NEC, allowing them to have their own dedicated fleet instead of relying on third parties. This is the most basic form of support we could provide, subsidizing the constriction of new vessels for private companies like IT.
Canada can leverage existing tools such as the Canada Infrastructure Bank to provide financing, along with potentially new funds like the Trade Diversification Corridors Fund or Arctic Infrastructure Fund to help finance some of these developments. I could make the argument these would count.
However this is by far my least preferred option. I'm not in the business to throw private businesses money for this stuff, and it still offers no guarantees of availability, which is what I would primarily be after.
You can probably see a lot of the same issues as we had when we talked about Sealift. What is the best model for running such a fleet? Do we subsidize the one existing company we have, enter into some sort of P3 effort, or try to go it on our own by owning a dedicated fleet?
Personally I have bounced between a lot of these options. These are highly-technical, complex vessels. They are also high-valued assets that we need to have on hand if needed. It presents a complex scenario. How do we make this all work?
My Ideal situation would be to have some sort of P3 scenario under a GOCO (Government Owned, Contractor Operated) model. Under this model Canada would assume the Capital Risk in acquiring the vessels while the Private operation would assume the Operational Risk in maintaining the vessel.
Canada would own the vessel, but the Private operator would be allowed to bid and participate on commercial contracts. The commercial profits subsidize the vessel’s maintenance and keep the crew’s technical skills sharp on active projects.
A navy cable ship would spend 80% of its life rusting at the jetty, providing no value to anyone and ensuring that the skills of it's crew are allowed to deprecate. They become a giant, very pretty moneypit. This method ensures the vessel is in operation, with a skilled, experienced crew that isn't draining on the budget. The government would retain some sort of priority provision and the ability to call the vessels in the event of emergency.
A bit of futureproofing for government's who might see such assets as a source of quick cash when cuts are on the horizon. That's just me though. I think a lot about those things.
Ideally four vessels, two per coast, would allow for some minimum level of availability. Canada should also explore a fifth, Ice-strengthened vessel capable of operating independently for at least the summer and fall months in the Archipelago, assuming the other four have no such capability.
Ideally all four would maintain some kind of Ice-Strengthening, though this would have to be balanced with it's ability to efficiently operate in a commercial capacity. Thats a debate for smarter people than me though.
The Royal Canadian Navy should also investigate a complementary class of Subsea Support vessels. These could either be new-builds, or more likely we go the Italian/British route of converting a civilian hull to the task, similar to RFA Proteus or HMS Stirling Castle.
Canada is incredibly vulnerable at sea. We have several very real and distinct chokepoints that could damage us an order of magnitude beyond what many common people will expect.
We need to be prepared to tackle those issues now. Theres also the role of Submarine support. Thats another important task that having a properly optimized vessel goes a long way.
Can the AOPS do it? Sure. Theres even been some trials for it, but it isnt the ideal platform. It goes beyond just rescue. A proper vessel can better provide support, including takes like resupply and forward repair.
Two of these vessels, one on each coast, provide a dedicated platform for both supporting the future Canadian Patrol Submarine and providing platforms optimized for Subsea monitoring and Intervention.
Lastly to all this, Canada should work with allies and like-minded partners to further secure the Subsea supply chain. That includes decoupling from Chinese Industry. Canada should also Investigate where we could fit ourselves into the supply chain. That includes through research and development initiatives supported by people like DRDC and IDEaS into developing an Arctic cable network.
Putting it together
So, let's recap. What are Noahs recommendations:
The Canadian government, in partnership with Indigenous governments and communities, Investigates the establishment of a Sovereign Fibre-Optic cable line running along the route of the Northwest passage
The Canadian government Investigates supporting the acquisition of up to four new Cable-Laying vessels, preferably through a Government Owned, Contractor Operated model
The Government of Canada Investigates the acquisition of a Polar-capable Cable-Laying vessel to support development of a future Fibre-Optic network in the Arctic.
Support the acquisition of up to two new Subsea/Submarine support vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy
Investigate Canada's future in the Subsea Supply Chain through targeted Investment, Research and Development, and coordination with allies and like-minded partners.
Of course I am one boy, and as always these are purely my opinion. I try to not make such recommendations as I often feel I am not qualified to tell people what to do, however I feel confident enough that these are realistic, well-thought and needed.
No one denies the need to support our Subsea Infrastructure. We see it all over the world. Our allies are making a lot of these same moves themselves to secure a sovereign subsea capability. Adversaries like Russia and China are only going to step-up their Grey-Zone efforts to target critical Infrastructure.
The world is becoming more dangerous. We all know that. We're vulnerable. We know that. We aren't doing enough. We know that. We can repeat these words like a mantra until the sun engulfs us all and we no longer matter.
It takes bold, radical action to change that though. It takes Initiative that a few years ago would have seemed over the top and silly. We're talking about the backbone of the modern world. We're talking about the very core of the modern economy.
That deserves radical thinking in my mind, far more radical than we are currently seeing. It Involves bold new choices, and sometimes means a bit of pain and sacrifice. None of this would be easy, far from it. To do everything on this list would be time-consuming, expensive, and still provide no guarantees in conflict that the network wouldn't fail.
Its about tipping the balance in our favour though. It's about giving us a better chance than we have now. A lot here might seem excessive. It might seem like much. Thats what we want. We want to tip the balance into as unfair an advantage for us as possible. That means layered assets, redundancies, and making sure we have failsafes even if we never use them.
Expensive? Yes. A potential drain? Yes. Worth it to me? Absolutely. I can think of no better waste than to say that we at least kept our critical Infrastructure protected, that we at least tried to give ourselves the capability to thrive on our own here, that at the least I can be proud that our communities up north can benefit from the Infrastructure we lay down.
Build the foundations. Build the roads, the Rail lines, and now the cables and watch us thrive. That to me is worth far more than any number on a sheet.
I now have much better insight into this subject. Although large HWYs like 401 can’t be built in the Arctic, the residents there need and deserve the same fibre optic networks as we southern Canucks require. Not to mention defence and security needs.
Truly fantastic work and it's refreshing to read interesting articles about the infrastructure we use daily but take for granted. This was like an episode of How its made a old favourite show of mine.