There are several exciting achievements in the submarine cable industry in 2012, such as:

• NTT launched ASE new generation pan-Asia cable in August, 
• Hibernia Atlantic completed the first 100G transatlantic trial, 
• The Seabras-1 is going to connect the US and Brazil, 
• The Arctic Fibre and the Russian Optical Trans Arctic Submarine Cable System (ROTACS) are going to run across Arctic, and
• The WASACE is going to link Africa, South America, North America and Europe.
• etc

With my observation,  the most exciting one, and the best of the best goes to

• Gulf Bridge International (GBI), connecting the World to the Gulf 

The nomination of the GBI cable as the Cable of 2012, which is the first time I am trying to do so on the Submarine Cable Networks, stands by following viewpoints:

1. The significance of the cable to the industry

Launched in February 2012, the GBI cable system connects to all the countries around the Gulf, brings the first ever submarine cable connecting Iraq, connects the world to the gulf via its eastward extend to India and westward extend to Europe. As the Middle East’s first carrier-neutral operator, GBI offers the most comprehensive reach across the region with an additional 5-10 Tbps of regional capacity.

2. Technology innovation

With a self-healing core ring in the Gulf region, the GBI cable offers true 100G connectivity on parts of its undersea cable network and achieved the first commercial repeatered submarine cable system with 100G technology, which was ready for service in October with full 100G connectivity between Zafarana cable landing station in Egypt on the Red Sea and Milan Point-of-Presence (PoP) in Italy. 

3. Marketing excellence

According to my observation, GBI implemented excellent marketing solutions and activities.

Not only did GBI actively present in various industry events to promoted their brand and products, but more successfully, it seems obviously GBI did quite good on internet marketing. When searching and reviewing websites and internet information of many cable companies and cable systems, GBI is the one outstanding.

In some occasions, when visiting cable websites especially those of consortium cables, I just wonder why the owners are so out-dated, why they are so poor informative, why the stakeholders spend heavy on traditional marketing without improving their online brand. GBI has amazingly well done.

From these points of views, I pleasantly nominate here on the Submarine Cable Networks the Cable of 2012 —— the GBI Cable.