Event report: Submarine Networks World 2025

2025 has been a great year in subsea already.  Suboptic conference in Lisbon combined a highly technical conference with a very professional tradeshow and the opportunity to meet with dozens of submarine network and cable operators in a single location.  And now we have Submarine Networks World in Singapore.

SNW 2025 provided customers the opportunity to experience Nokia’s full range of subsea solutions strengthened by the acquisition of Infinera, including Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE) covering all subsea feature requirements, and optimized end-to-end subsea-terrestrial solutions.

For Nokia the event got off to a great start with our annual Subsea Masterclass for network operators, and this year we brought together a number of hot topics and knowledgeable speakers for a fully packed room.  As always we love to focus on key topics  that are top of mind for our customers and the industry.   For this year’s Masterclass we chose  three topics out of a wider mix including: 

• The rise of pluggables in submarine networks
• Subsea Fiber Sensing Technologies​: Today and Tomorrow​
• Automation in the Era of AI​: From Terrestrial to Subsea​

The room was packed – with over 200 attendees, and for a moment of fun after the session, we finished with our traditional Kahoot quiz with prizes for the three winners.

SNW 2025’s most interesting sessions

Kicking off the conference Day 1 Walid Wakim, Nokia’s CTO of Systems held a keynote presentation on the topic of “AI-Native networks & the future of cognitive connections”.  Based on data prepared by Bell Labs Consulting, Walid was able to explain quantitatively how AI, and especially AI inferencing, is impacting bandwidth growth patterns in metro, long haul and even submarine networks.  The end result, of course, is that additional growth pressure is placed on submarine cables, which will be filling up ahead of schedule.  This impact is exactly what we tried to reflect in more detail in our Masterclass.  Namely:

• The need to consider pluggable optics solutions where possible in order to meet constraints on space and power – especially in when terminating in older and constrained Cable Landing Station designs.
• The need for automated cable turn-up and provisioning as the number of simultaneous service demands exceeds the capacity of existing operational staff.
• The need to understand more about cable life cycles, in terms of changes to burial depth, flexing of cable sections by undersea currents, abrasion progress in specific cable sections and even proactive protection of cables against anchors and fishing nets.

Nokia’s expanded submarine network solutions addresses these requirements and more.

A shot across the bow: The rising threat of maritime cyberattacks

Stephen McCombie of NHL Stenden University of applied Sciences gave an eye-opening presentation about marine cyber attacks.  Often the targets (including ships, offshore platforms, dock facilities) tend to use older equipment that is often poorly maintained for security updates and is, therefore, extremely vulnerable.  In the modern landscape we see a wide variety of bad actors – including potentially state-sponsored attacks – resulting in significant disruption.  I was introduced to a whole set of new threat types, including GPS jamming and spoofing; Automatic Identification System (AIS) jamming and spoofing; as well as the typical DDoS and ransomware we experience in more conventional networks.

Armoring SMAP: A world-first in coastal cable design

As a confirmation of the vital importance of submarine cables Bevan Slattery, founder and CEO of SODA, gave an excellent justification for armoring the total length of the Syndney Melbourne Adelaide Perth (SMAP) cable system.  Armored cable is, of course, much more expensive than lightweight cable, but armoring is potentially less expensive than cable burial – especially where local currents may “dig up” the cable over time.  As Bevan explained, if the risk to the cable is high enough then it makes economic sense to armor as much of the cable as possible.

Petabit cable: Delivering an optimized and risk-free solution

Jean-Francois Baget of Alcatel Submarine Networks gave an excellent summary of the next steps towards Petabit cable design.  Today the Anjana cable, with 24 fiber pairs of 200 micron outside diameter fiber represents the highest cable capacity with roughly 0.5 Petabits per second.  Jean-Francois explained that there are three basic choices to take the next step to a full Petabit cable.

• More fiber pairs
• C+L band operation
• Dual core fiber

Each of these has its challenges.  Today’s 17mm cable design is “full” once we reach 24 x 200 micron fiber pairs.  Moving to higher fiber counts is not that easy unless we change the cable design.  C+L is a mature technology in terrestrial networks, but L-band amplification is less power efficient than C-band and long-distance submarine cables are usually power-constrained.  Dual core uncoupled fibers have been made, and even deployed on a single cable section in the Pacific.  But dual core fiber is expensive because there is no demand for it in terrestrial networks (at least today), so volumes are low.

These are just a few of the excellent presentations and panels we enjoyed at the first day of the show.  

Telegeography 

The highlight of the second day for me was the traditional Telegeography presentation given by Alan Mauldin and entitled “Scale: The Quest for Universal Submarine Cable Market Laws”.  The context here is that Alan was looking to see if there are any “Moore’s Law” style scaling laws that apply to submarine cables.  I don’t want to steal any of his thunder because in the next few days you’ll be able to read his blog and download a copy of the slides from the Telegeography website.

Wrapping it up

In contrast to Suboptic, which has many in-depth technical sessions, SNW focuses on the higher level aspect of this vital and complex industry.  Subsea networks have never been more important to global connectivity and economies, and the presentations, panels and informal discussions at the show delivered a wealth of knowledge to set the stage for how these networks will continue to play a key role in our day-to-day lives.

As always with SNW, the show is really about the human networking aspect.  It was great to meet with colleagues, customers, prospects, and even competitors for Nokia’s Submarine Network Solution.