Undersea cable leaders gathering at KMI Corp.'s 7th Annual Fiberoptic Submarine Systems Symposium in Dublin, Ireland, June 13-15, 2001, called the current global turndown a normal cyclical storm, but warned that not everyone in the industry will ride it out.
“We�re in a dip, but [the market] will come back,” noted William Carter, executive advisor at Global Crossing Development Co. Carter and other speakers helped put in context the current acute financial challenges that fiber-based submarine telecom service providers and suppliers are facing.
Riding out the storm will not be easy. “The good news is there will be some survivors,” quipped Ed McCormack, chief operating officer at London-based FLAG Telecom. For companies that can “hold their nerve,” he said, the current market conditions may prove a long-term positive factor. Although in the short term he expects capital expenditures to decline relative to revenue, “we�ll get a more rational marketplace as a result.”
Conference co-chair J. Robert Cooper III presented statistical evidence of the cyclical nature of the submarine telecom market. According to Cooper, “There has been a slowdown in investment in undersea systems every three or four years since 1988, such as spending decreases of 42% between 1989 and 1990 and 36% between 1997 and 1998. Looking forward, there will be a 12% decrease between 2001 and 2002.”
Richard Mack, symposium co-chair, vice president and general manager at KMI, presented the land/sea fiber disparity with charts depicting worldwide deployment of cabled fiber by application for the years 1993 to 2002. Relative to such other applications categories as terrestrial long distance and local telephony, he noted that the submarine portion is about 1% in terms of fiber-km, but 10% or more in terms of cable value.
KMI�s Annual Fiberoptic Submarine Systems Symposium is a forum for undersea cable senior executives to exchange ideas and hear the latest technologies and trends. The firm's latest market study, 2001 Worldwide Summary of Fiberoptic Undersea Systems,
documents principal industry activity and focuses on supply-side statistics. Symposium proceedings and KMI�s reports furnish planners with tools to gauge undersea fiberoptics markets.
For more information, contact KMI Corporation at KMI Corporation or call 401-243-8100.