Undersea fiber optic cable communications system of the future: Operational, reliability, and systems considerations

The systems and operational requirements, reliability, and cost estimates for several undersea fiber optic cable communications systems of varying capacities, data transmission rates, and link distances are analyzed in detail to highlight relevant design tradeoff parameters. It is shown that systems with a high data rate per fiber are more economical and reliable than low data rate systems with multiple fibers. This study concludes that undersea optic cable systems can soon provide reliable broad-band digital services.