Try opening TeleGeography’s submarinecablemap site. It is an updated and free resource that indicates all the commercial submarine cables that ply the seabed – plus the land-based sections – and that land on continents. The general picture is that of a giant network that spans the globe, with some busiest areas (Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Pacific), others experiencing strong growth (Eurasia) and still others potentially emerging (Africa). But, above all, it is the framework of an incredible business, about which little is known and for which a “war” of strategic positioning is being fought, in which supranational organizations such as the European Union and the governments of the sovereign states. A map where Italy plays and can play an important role.
Genoa, for example, is a candidate to be the center of the Mediterranean data economy, competitive with Marseilles, the main hub of the Mare Nostrum, as was said today on the opening day of the eighth edition of Genoa Smart Week, a week of conferences, informative meetings aimed at citizens, companies and institutions on the issues of development and evolution of innovative cities (until 26 November, promoted by the Genova Smart City Association and the Municipality, with the technical collaboration of Clickutility Team and the support of numerous partners).
Engineer Giuseppe Sini, head of Retelit’s business customer division
The network
Commercial submarine cables (military ones are top secret) appear towards the end of the 1800s – the first in history is the one laid under the English Channel between England (Dover) and France (Calais) in 1850 by the Anglo-French Submarine Telegraph Company Telegraph Co. – and are dedicated exclusively to communication. Telegraph, voice. The boom arrives in the 1990s, when cables multiply on the wave of the advent of the Internet and the money from the net economy bubble. We need “highways” to transmit data, satellites are not as competitive as in telephony, and the invisible network that furrows the seabed is the necessary answer.
Just to get an idea. About 99% of global data passes along submarine cables and among the latter, the overwhelming majority is generated by big tech companies such as Meta, Google and the like. The network includes over 500 cables for a total length of over 1.3 million kilometres; the longest is 2Africa: 45,000 km. Technological evolution is continuous, we have moved from copper to fiber optics; the cables are laid by special ships, there are units and teams of deep-sea divers ready to intervene 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in the event of interruptions and damages (2-3 guard ships in the Mediterranean); investments for cables alone are exorbitant, for optical fiber (there are also those for high voltage, but they are something else and much more expensive) we are talking about a range between 30 and 80 thousand euros per kilometre, therefore total exposures for hundreds of millions of euros, to which maintenance costs must be added.
The risk on the seabed
Meanwhile, a question. Whose cables are they? Who pays them? “In the beginning the monopoly telecommunications companies. Then, from the 1990s and 2000s, investment funds took the field, attracted by the net economy. So, we’re back to the operators, who have joined a consortium to tackle the costs and, more recently, there are the big techs who no longer just buy traffic capacity from the operators, but invest in their own cables. And, last but not least, there is a return of interest from governments and supranational organizations, such as the European Union, also for security as well as economic reasons”, explains the engineer Giuseppe Sini, head of the business customer division of Retelit, the Milanese Tlc and Ict company, owner of a fiber optic network and data centers in Italy and member of AAE-1, the international consortium that it laid and manages the cable linking Europe to Southeast Asia via the Middle East. Consortium of which Sini himself was chairman of the Management Committee, the body that in simple terms governs the “condominium” of the cable. “The members of the consortium are owners of portions of the cable, which are divided into thousandths like a normal residential condominium. They must participate in the laying and maintenance of the cable itself, they can do it for upgrades related to traffic capacity. The role of the condominium administrator is rather complex”.
The commercial submarine cable network
The business is represented by the interchange of digital data. Try to imagine how many giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook or Netflix can move per second and you immediately understand what scope we are talking about. In addition, there is a small portion of data that is however worth billions, and they are those of financial transactions. “In the beginning, the big techs bought portions of traffic capacity, obtaining decidedly low prices from the operators owning the optical fiber pairs, given their contractual strength, and then directly laid their own cables, or in a consortium, but as owners of the pairs of fibers, so as to manage the traffic as they see fit”, explains Sini again.
Further question. Do the owners of the cables pay taxes or fees to the States, which have jurisdiction over the waters, territorial or in the context of economic exploitation areas? “There are permits to apply for laying a cable and fees for using the seabed are paid, but they are not exorbitant amounts. At least, in the Mediterranean. There are more expensive states, for example in the Indian Ocean, but we tend to avoid them”.
Landing points and hubs
The cables furrow and expand on the seabed, in some cases even crossing some emerged land, and then arrive at their destination. “They go up the beach, enter a sort of “manhole” and arrive at the landing station, from where they then branch out further towards the main European hubs”, explains engineer Sini.
Currently the role of main landing center in the Mediterranean is played by Marseilles. The French city has supplanted Sicily in the last ten years as a landing point. But not only. “There was a cost issue between the landing point in Sicily and the main hub, namely Milan. Marseille offered both the landing place and the hub at lower costs”, explains the Retelit manager. Italy, however, is not standing by. Genoa has the ambition to undermine Marseille. “From its origins, Genoa has the northernmost point of the Mediterranean, therefore closest to the Milan hub. And it can be a strategically important alternative to Marseilles, where if for some reason, for example an earthquake, the landing point of the cables were to fail, the flow of data would be interrupted with truly catastrophic consequences”.
We see. The longest cable in the world, 45 thousand km, which circumnavigates Africa and connects it, il 2Africa (Equinix con Mtn, Meta, Orange, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, Wiocc e China Mobile), it passes through the Red Sea, goes ashore in Egypt, pours into the Mediterranean and arrives in Genoa, to then rebound on Marseilles and Barcelona. So there is the Blue & Raman, a cable that sees a Mediterranean part (BlueMed) and a second via Israel to India, with Sparkle, the global operator of the Tim Group in the front row in the pose together with Google and other operators and which lands in Genoa (with “festoones” towards Marseilles and Barcelona), to then continue by land to Milan: it should be ready in 2023.
Again for next year, there will also be talks in Genoa of Medloop, the cable that will connect the capital with Marseille, Ajaccio and Barcelona, laid and developed by Elettra Tlc/Orange Marine with Alcatel SN. While in Savona it should land instead in 2024 theIndia Europe Xpress (Jio Infocomm) which will connect Mumbai with Milan: 9,775 km passing through Salalah (Oman); Djibouti City (Djibouti); Yanbu and Duba (Saudi Arabia); Zafarana and Sidi Kerir (Egypt) and Timpaki (Greece).
The challenge
The real bet for a city like Genoa, which is questioning its “smart” future, digital and in sustainable mobility, is not to be just a landing and transit point. “The cable landing station, i.e. the landing point, can be an element of positive development if we don’t limit ourselves to considering it as a mere transit point towards Milan, but if it becomes the fulcrum of a system that goes beyond the data exchange of big tech and from which a hub that the city can benefit from – explains the engineer Sini -. A structure that develops digital interchange for the port, companies and the public administration”.