Bevan Slattery (SUB.CO)
Southern Cross Cable Network has expanded its partnership with Bevan Slattery-chaired threat detection vendor FiberSense.
The two will expand Southern Cross’ access to FiberSense’s DigitalAsset Marine across a 450 kilometre stretch of Southern Cross’ submarine cable connecting Australia, New Zealand, the US and the Pacific Islands.
FiberSense’s DigitalAsset Marine will be applied to the shore-end network, all the way from the cable landing station to the first repeater.
“Since trialling the monitoring service back in 2019, we’ve been very impressed with the outcomes that the technology the FiberSense team delivers,” said Dean Veverka, director networks and VP operations at Southern Cross.
“They’ve added significant detection capabilities, deterrence benefits and maintenance reductions, especially in the heavily trafficked zones where cables typically land.”
Veverka said a benefit of the partnership expansion would benefit Southern Cross as it would not need a separate fibre path for the monitoring.
“The rest of the submarine sector looks closely at innovations that the Pacific based cable operators are adopting and once again, SX is at the forefront of showing just what further protection measures are possible in operating this critical communications infrastructure,” he added.
Founder and CEO of FiberSense Mark Englund said the company’s solution was “a game changer in meeting the challenges operators face to improve subsea cable resilience”.
“Even when the marine cables are buried and out of sight, our technology reveals the location and nature of potentially damaging events from anchor drag, fishing net entanglement, rock fall and unauthorised tampering,” he said.
“Being able to 'see' for the first time these types of events in real-time along the cable allows the cable operator to action mitigation strategies as well as attribution exactly when and where the risk is detected.”
