MAY 2024 ISSUE NO.

263

SubCableNews.com

THE GLOBAL INFORMATION NEWSLETTER FOR THE WHOLE SUBMARINE CABLE INDUSTRY

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SEA-ME-WE 6 CABLE
LANDING IN MARSEILLE, FRANCE SUBCOM ®
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Delivering Subsea Capacity:

Technology Options for
Space-division Multiplexing Cables
By Geoff Bennett, Infinera

THE NEED FOR SUBSEA CAPACITY A HISTORY OF CAPACITY GROWTH

The analyst firm TeleGeography has reported that global
demand for international bandwidth has now reached 3.9
petabits per second (Pb/s). Growth hot spots include the
African continent and the hyperscaler market segment, who
account for over 70% of global subsea demand, and over
90% on routes such as the Atlantic.
One question that we are all waiting to have answered is when
artificial intelligence (AI) will trigger an increase in submarine
network demand, because while AI data centers are said to
consume between five and 10 times more compute power
vs. normal data centers, it is not clear how much additional
AI-related traffic “leaks out” into submarine networks.
With or without AI’s help, demand in submarine networks is
doubling about every two years – which is a daunting rate
when we consider how long it takes to plan and deploy a
new submarine cable (between three and seven years).
Figure 1 shows the increase in capacity over the past 25
years for a conventional optical fiber pair, illustrating that
increasing capacity comes from three distinct parts of the
network – the fiber, the line system, and the transponders.
In Stage 1, the capacity increase you see happening from
about 2000 until 2010 came from improvements in fiber
technology (G.652/G.655/G.655 LEAF), the line system, and
particularly, the increase in C-band capacity by deploying
wider-bandwidth amplifiers.
In Stage 2, there was a significant increase in the pace of
capacity growth thanks to the evolution through multiple
generations of coherent transponders.
But then in Stage 3, transponders have reached PM-64QAM
modulation and are approaching the practical and even
theoretical limit of spectral efficiency. The consensus

Figure 1

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seems to be that there could be between 15% and 25%

more capacity we could squeeze from the equivalent
spectrum with future transponder designs. So, in terrestrial
transmission networks, we are starting to turn once again
to the line system to increase capacity – in this case, from
Extended C-band’s 4.8 GHz to Super C-band’s 6.1 THz.

We’ve also seen a widespread adoption of extended

C+L-Band transmission with a whopping 9.6 THz of capacity.
In the future, we should also see Super C+L systems with up to
12.2 THz that could deliver up to 100 terabits per second (Tb/s)
of capacity on a single long-distance terrestrial fiber pair.

This is great news for terrestrial systems, but what about

submarine cables? Many people who work in submarine
network transmission will often point out that “subsea is different.”

SUBMARINE CABLE LIMITS

But where does this difference come from? Unlike terrestrial
networks, where we have power available at each amplifier
hut site, the only places we can insert electrical power in the
submarine cable is in the cable landing stations. The power
feed equipment (PFE) involved is impressive, with massive
DC voltages applied at each end of the cable – up to 15 kV
in systems deployed today and plans for up to 24 kV PFE in
future cables.
Any technology strategy to increase submarine network
capacity must be power efficient. Let me briefly summarize
some of the options:
• Operating coherent transponders at their highest spectral
efficiency requires relatively short amplifier spans with high
optical gain. Both imply higher electrical power needed. So,
squeezing that extra 15-20% out of the fiber may not be the
most power-efficient option in future submarine cables.
Figure 2
decreasing repeater spacing, running the amplifiers at
higher gain, and thus enabling higher spectral efficiency.
Modelling this option resulted in an increase from 20 Tb/s
per fiber pair to 26 Tb/s.
Option 2 is to forget about maximizing individual fiber pair
capacity, keep the repeaters the way they are, and simply
deploy another fiber pair. This delivers a total of 40 Tb/s – a
significantly better return on the power invested.
SDM includes a more power-efficient use of repeater pump
lasers (pump farming) and a shift in focus from maximizing
individual fiber pair capacity toward maximizing overall
cable capacity.
CABLE SIZE LIMITS

• Expanding amplifier bandwidth is also not a
power-efficient option as widening the C-band requires
that we “trim off” power tilt and ripple, and L-band gain is
less electrically efficient compared to C-band gain.
SPACE-DIVISION MULTIPLEXING (SDM)
From around 2018 onward, the submarine wet plant industry
began to develop a clear technology roadmap for future
cable capacity. This evolution was based on a simple
question – if you could find a way to deliver twice as much
electrical power (or be twice as electrically efficient), what
would be the best way to use that power?
Figure 2 summarizes two of the options that start from a
baseline of a fiber with 20 Tb/s of capacity.
In terrestrial networks, a standard two-inch duct can fit
almost 7,000 fiber pairs today. But, of course, subsea is…yes,
you guessed it…different.
When a submarine cable is laid, it needs to be loaded onto
a cable laying ship, which has a finite hold capacity. So, the
thinner the submarine cable, the more cable length the ship
can carry. For a trans-oceanic cable, this is a critical economic
factor for the cable deployment cost, and for this reason the
industry prefers a 17-mm cable for deep water. 21-mm cable
designs also exist, but a cable laying ship can carry 30% less
length of 21-mm cable vs. 17-mm cable. In a major project,
this would require ships to return to port, load more cable,
and then go back and retrieve the end of the cable they just
laid – and to potentially repeat this process several times.

Option 1 would continue the traditional design goal to

maximize individual fiber pair capacity by, for example, CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE…
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CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE…
Figure 3
A submarine cable is built in layers, with the fiber compartment,
the copper conductor, and the polyethylene insulator all
competing for space in the 17-mm outside diameter limit.
Increasing electrical power would be easier with a thicker
conductor, and fewer cable shorts (known as shunt failures)
would be experienced with a thicker insulator. But this can
only be achieved with a smaller fiber compartment, and the
goal of SDM is to enable more fiber pairs.
In other words, future SDM evolution becomes spatially
constrained as different functions in the cable (fiber,
conductor, insulator) all compete for space.
SMALLER FIBER AND MULTIPLE FIBER CORES
By moving from 250-µm to 200-µm outer diameter fiber,
a 17-mm cable could increase its capacity from 16 to 24
fiber pairs – and a 21-mm cable could support up to 36 x
200 µm fiber pairs. This is the design option taken by the
Anjana trans-Atlantic cable that will come into service later
this year. Figure 3 shows the impact of SDM design on
three similar-length trans-Atlantic cables – MAREA, Dunant,
and Anjana. Notice the assumptions for a fifth-generation
transponder in terms of individual fiber pair capacity, and
of SDM design in terms of increasing fiber pairs and a
subsequent increase in total cable capacity.
At some point, even thinner single-core fiber will run up
against spatial constraints, and the next step is to deploy
multi-core fiber (MCF) – fiber that has more than one
transmission core inside the same filament.
Dual-core MCF is already deployed in one spur segment of
a submarine cable, and it will be deployed this year along a
full cable length in the Pacific. The result is a doubling of cable
capacity vs. single core fiber in the same spatial volume.
Does this mean that we can go on increasing the number
of fiber cores to boost cable capacity? Perhaps…but the
problem is that as we go beyond two-core (and possibly
four-core) MCF, we observe increasing crosstalk (or
“coupling”) of information between the cores.
May 2024 | Issue 263 184
It’s possible to build a transponder that can “untangle” these
coupled conversations using a technique called multiple
input multiple output (MIMO). MIMO is already used today
in 4G/5G and Wi-Fi 4/5/6 radio communications. But optical
MIMO is a huge technology challenge. It would require a
dedicated transponder design that is exponentially more
complex than the transponders we use today.
If coupled multi-core fiber becomes attractive in terrestrial
networks, then this would help fund the development of
MIMO transponders for subsea operation. But at this point,
most terrestrial networks are not spatially constrained,
and simply lighting more conventional fibers is seen as a
cheaper option.
HOLLOW-CORE FIBER (HCF)
Conventional silica core fiber has served the industry well
for over 30 years. But there are drawbacks to propagating
light through glass that could be solved by using a
hollow-core fiber, where the signal travels through air
or a partial vacuum. HCF shows immense promise but is
probably at least eight to 10 years away from being used in
submarine cables.
SUMMARY
The SDM roadmap has a healthy set of options for
capacity scaling that will deliver two or even three more
doublings of cable capacity. Moving beyond this eight times
increase opens an interesting debate on submarine cable
architectures and transponder designs of the future.
Geoff Bennett is the
Director of Solutions &
Technology for Infinera,
a leading manufacturer
of Intelligent Transport
Network solutions. He
has over 25 years of
experience in the data
communications industry,
including IP routing with
Proteon and Wellfleet; ATM and MPLS experience
with FORE Systems; and optical transmission and
switching experience with Marconi, where he held
the position of Distinguished Engineer in the CTO
Office. Geoff is a frequent conference speaker, and
is the author of “Designing TCP/IP Internetworks”,
published by VNR.
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