Cable Landing Station is one important component of a submarine cable system which comprises of Wet Plant and Dry Plant.
The Dry Plant of a submarine cable system is a segment between the beach manhole and the cable landing station, comprises of land cable, power feeding equipment (PFE) and submarine line terminal equipment(SLTE), etc. The Wet Plant of a submarine cable system lies between the beach manholes, consists of submarine cable, repeater/gain equalizer, branching unit. A typical schematic of a submarine cable system is shown below.
The PFE and the SLTE of a submarine cable system are installed at the cable landing station. In some cases, the PFE is installed at a cable landing station nearby the cable landing site, while the SLTE may be installed in another cable landing station much faraway. For example, the terminal station at Hillsboro for the SLTE of the TPE cable system is about 150 mile away from the cable landing site at Nedonna Beach.
Multiple submarine cable systems may share the same cable landing stations. The submarine cable system is connected with the terrestrial network at the cable landing station, through the so called backhaul system.
The cable landing site is usually carefully chosen to be in areas:
Multiple types of submarine cables may be used in a submarine cable system, subject to depth of the seabed where the cable lies.
The double armored submarine cable is used at the shore-end, terminated at the beach manhole at the cable landing site, and is interconnected with much lighter land cable going onward to the cable landing station.
In most of the jurisdictions worldwide, the cable landing license is required to land a submarine cable.
There are now the following submarine cables landing in Mainland China:
Cables to the US:
Cables connecting Asia:
Cables to Africa and Europe:
The cables land at 9 submarine cable landing stations in China.
China Telecom owns three cable landing stations, including
China Unicom owns four cable landing stations, including:
China Mobile owns two cable landing stations:
There are now 15 submarine cables landing in 7 cable landing stations in Taiwan:
Global internet giants and operators have heavy investments in Taiwan.
Google has two hyperscale data centers in Taiwan, one in Changhua County which costs US$780 million and was completed in 2013, the other in Tainan Technology Industrial Park which will cost US$850 million, with a power supply of 10MW. So, Google builds two subsea cable connecting Taiwan and the US, FASTER and PLCN. Google also acquies huge capacity on other subsea cables connectign Taiwan.
Facebook has significant investment on subsea cables connecting Taiwan, including APG, SJC2 and HKA. Especially, Facebook owns 4 out of the six fiber pairs on HKA Toucheng/Taiwan Branch.
Besides local operators including Chunghwa Telecom, Far EasTone Telecom (NCIC), etc., Telstra represents a key player on submarine cable business in Taiwan, its EAC-C2C network landing in 4 cable landing stations in Taiwan, and being HKA landing party in Taiwan.
Geographically, the east and south coast of Taiwan island is of significant importance for the submarine networks, and is also a high-risk region for the submarine networks due to the characteristics of the geology of Taiwan.
The east and south of Taiwan are a complex system of belts formed by, and part of the zone of, active collision between the North Luzon Through portion of the Luzon Volcanic Arc and South China, where accreted portions of the Luzon Arc and Luzon forearc form the eastern Coastal Range and parallel inland Longitudinal Valley of Taiwan respectively. This region is encountered frequent seismic faults which may caused serious harmful impact to the submarine networks. For example, the magnitude 7.0 Hengchun Earthquake in December 2006 resulted in 18 cable cuts in 8 submarine cable systems, atastrophically disrupted Internet services in Asia and Pan-Pacific regions.
Brunei Darussalam is shaping up as a bandwidth transit hub for the Bornean States of Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan. Terrestrial fibre optic cables connect these Bornean States to Brunei cable landing stations which then provide direct connectivity to 9 international destinations, namely Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, China and USA.
The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AITI) facilitates the deployment of telecommunication infrastructure and services, including submarine cables, in Brunei. An Infrastructure Provider for the Telecommunication Industry (InTi) is required to deploy a submarine cable system into Brunei.
As of January 2020, Brunei Darussalam is connected to 4 active submarine cable systems, with a potential bandwidth capacity of 10 Tbps. These 4 submarine cable systems are landed in two cable landing sites in Brunei, namely the Tungku landing site and the Telisai landing site.
There are currently two cable landing stations:
There are now four submarine cables connecting Brunei:
Riding on the strong growth in IP-based traffic, Brunei has successfully lighted up 10 Tbps of international capacity to fuel bandwidth demand.
Brunei’s geographical location with no history of natural disasters like typhoons and earthquakes, and substantially lower power costs, presented the sultanate with added advantages as a connectivity and transit hub for the underserved regions of Borneo Island and the BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippines East Asia Growth Area)
Brunei is connected Sabah and Sarawak of Malaysia and the West Kalimantan Province of Indonesia with terrestrial connectivity via the border crossing of Sungai Tujoh, and with commercial traffic of 1 Tbps.
Contributed by: Marcus Ang, et al., UNN
Cable Landing Stations in Russia
Guam is a natural hub and communication gateway for trans-Pacific telecommunications. On this 212-square-mile island, Guam arguably has one of the most extensive telecom infrastructures in the Asia Pacific region and most areas throughout the United States.
There are following cable landing stations in Guam:
There are 7 cable landing stations in Hawaii Islands, including
Cable landing stations in the Big Island:
Cable landing stations in Honolulu - Oahu Island:
American Samoa is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa). The 2000 census showed a total population of 57,291 people. The total land area is 76.1 square miles (197.1 km2). American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the United States.
There is one international fiber optic cable between American Samoa, Samoa and Hawaii, the ASH/SAS Cable, and connects America Samoa to the existing global telecommunications infrastructure networks.
The ASH/SAS Cable lands at the Pago Pago Cable Landing Station.
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa and German Samoa, is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in Polynesia, Savai'i. The capital city, Apia, and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu.
Samoa is connected into the global submarine networks with the Samoa American Samoa Cable (SAS Cable), and onward connectivity with the American Samoa Hawaii Cable (ASH Cable).
The ASH/SAS Cable lands at the Apia Cable Landing Station.
French Polynesia is an overseas collectivity or constituent country of the French Republic. It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory (Papeete).
There are several cable landing stations in French Polynesia, including Vaitape, Uturoa, Huahine, Moorea and Papenoo cable landing stations.
The Papenoo Cable Landing Station in Tahiti island is the cable landing station for the Honotua submarine cable connecting French Polynesia and Hawaii, with onward connectivity to link French Polynesia with global submarine networks.
It is currently one international submarine cable linking Papua New Guinea, i.e., the PPC-1 cable landing at the Madang Cable Landing Station in Papua New Guinea.
The Southern Cross Cable Network is currently the only one international submarine cable landing in Fiji, and lands at the Suva Cable Landing Station in Viti Levu Island of Fiji.