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Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is a French company and one of the three world leaders in the manufacture and installation of submarine cables. It was a subsidiary of Alcatel, then Alcatel-Lucent, until it was acquired by the Finnish group Nokia in 2016. It was owned by Nokia France from 2016 to 2024. The French state acquired 80% of the company's capital in November 2024.[1]
Alcatel Submarine Networks designs, manufactures, lays and maintains telecommunications submarine cables and related equipment, using its own vessels to carry optical fibre around the globe. Laying telecommunications submarine cables is a strategic industry.[2][3] ASN, Subcom and NEC dominate this global market, with 99% of Internet traffic passing through these cables, 80% of which transits through the United States, whatever its destination.[4] In 2018, ASN's market share (30%) was ahead of Japanese competitor NEC (23%) and American Subcom (20%).[5]
As of 2024[update], ASN has 2,000 employees, including 1,370 in France. The company has several sites in France, the United Kingdom and Norway. Alcatel Submarine Networks has a fleet of seven cable-laying vessels and is the world No. 1 in the sector.[1]
History
In 1858, the Submarine Telegraph Company, founded by Thomas Crampton, was created and became an international telegraph network operator. On 30 January 1860, the Submarine Telegraph Company laid the first telegraph cable between Jersey and France.[6] In 1925, the Compagnie Générale d'Électricité absorbed the Compagnie Générale des Cables de Lyon.
In 1991, Compagnie Générale d'Électricité changed its name to Alcatel-Alsthom. Compagnie Générale des Câbles de Lyon became Alcatel Câble and acquired AEG Kabel.
In 1993, Alcatel Cable acquired the British company STC Submarine Systems (formerly the Submarine Telegraph Company) and its 34,000 m2 factory at Enderby's Wharf on the Greenwich Peninsula on the banks of the Thames, where submarine cables had been made since 1857.[7] The company had latterly been a division of Northern Telecom Europe (which later became Nortel). Alcatel Cable became the world's leading cable manufacturer, with around 40% of the global market for fibre-optic submarine telecommunications cables. Production capacity would reach 30,000 km of optical cable per year.[8]
In June 1994, Alcatel merged its submarine telecommunications activities into a new company called Alcatel Submarine Systems. This subsidiary was 51% owned by Alcatel Câble (which became Nexans) and 49% by Alcatel-CIT.[9] On 9 October 2000, Alcatel Cable became Nexans. Alcatel retained Alcatel Submarine Networks and 20% of Nexans (this stake in Nexans was resold in 2005).[10]
On 1 December 2006, Alcatel acquired Lucent Technologies to form Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel Submarine Networks became Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.
On 8 April 2009, the following 12 companies signed an agreement for the construction and maintenance of the West Africa Cable System, a cable linking South Africa to the United Kingdom via the Atlantic Ocean: Vodacom, Togo Telecom, Telkom SA, Telecom Namibia, Tata Communications/Neotel, Portugal Telecom/Cabo Verde Telecom, Office congolais des postes et télécommunications, Groupe MTN, Congo Telecom, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Broadband Infraco and Angola Câbles. The supply contract was signed the same day between the consortium members and Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.[11]
In 2011, Alcatel Submarine Networks continued its global presence on the oceans through its cable ships: the CS Ile de Sein contributed to the recovery of the data recorder from Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic. This proved that the company has the versatility to use the vessel to recover an object from the seabed for telecommunications or emergency assistance purposes. An ROV from Phoenix International Inc also helped the ship.[12]
On 15 July 2010, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks began laying the WACS cable, with the departure from Île de Bréhat of the Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks cable factory in Calais, loaded with nearly 6,000 km of submarine cable. The cable was laid by Île de Bréhat and its sister ship Île de Sein. The installation officially ended on 19 April 2011 with the laying of the cable in Yzerfontein, after less than 10 months at sea.[13] The cable became operational on 11 May 2012 when it was illuminated in South Africa.[14]
In 2014, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks acquired the Norwegian company Optoplan, a division of the French oil group CGG.[15]
On 15 April 2015, Alcatel-Lucent announced its acquisition by Finnish telecoms giant Nokia. Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks would become part of Nokia's Submarine Network Solutions division in France, but was intended to remain independent.[16][17]
In 2017, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks reverted to its original name, Alcatel Submarine Networks.[18]
At the end of October 2018, Nokia and French company Ekinops confirmed that they had been in discussions for several months about a possible takeover of Alcatel Submarine Networks, Nokia's submarine cable business, but discussions ended in April 2019. The French government was still looking for a round of financing that could include Orange Marine, in order to protect its strategic interests.[19][20]
By 1 January 2022, ASN had laid more than 700,000 km of cable on the seabed, maintained more than 300,000 km of cable and commissioned more than 200 fibre optic systems.[21]
On 27 June 2024, the French government announced that it had reached an agreement with Nokia to buy 80% of ASN's shares through the Agence des participations de l'État (APE). This decision means that the 'strategic company' is once again controlled by a French shareholder, after the Finnish group had been considering the company's future for two years. The deal is valued at €100 million, drawn from the government's financial holdings special allocation account, whereas the total value of the company (including cash and debt) is €350 million. Nokia retains 20% of the capital, but the APE will be able to buy back this share, under conditions that have not been communicated.[1][22][23]
The company holds around a third of this global market, alongside TE SubCom of the US and NEC of Japan. Its optical fibre now covers more than 800,000 kilometres of the Earth, almost twenty times its circumference. ASN operates in a growing market, with growth expected to be close to 10% a year until at least 2032, according to Global Market Insights. The French government completed its takeover of ASN by signing a contract to acquire 80% of the capital on 5 November 2024 in Calais, at the company's historic plant.[23][24][25][26]
Fleet
In 2023, ASN will have a fleet of 7 vessels.[27] The Île de Bréhat, Île de Batz, Île de Sein, Île d'Aix and Île d'Yeu vessels are used to lay submarine cables. The vessels Île d'Ouessant and Île de Molène are used for cable maintenance.[28][29]
In 2011, ASN purchased the CS Gulmar Badaro, renaming it CS Ile d'Aix to further expand its operations. This vessel was built in 1992 and was equipped with cable repair and laying technologies.[30][31]
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, in the Helsinki metropolitan area, but the company's actual roots are in the Tampere region of Pirkanmaa. In 2020, Nokia employed approximately 92,000 people across over 100 countries, did business in more than 130 countries, and reported annual revenues of around €23 billion. Nokia is a public limited company listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki and New York Stock Exchange. It was the world's 415th-largest company measured by 2016 revenues, according to the Fortune Global 500, having peaked at 85th place in 2009. It is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.
A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, for electric power transmission, military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guiding cable over bow or stern or both. Bow sheaves, some very large, were characteristic of all cable ships in the past, but newer ships are tending toward having stern sheaves only, as seen in the photo of CS Cable Innovator at the Port of Astoria on this page. The names of cable ships are often preceded by "C.S." as in CS Long Lines.
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries in Eastern Africa to the rest of the world.
Nexans S.A. is a global company in the cable and optical fibre industry headquartered in Paris, France.
Alcatel–Lucent S.A. was a multinational telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris France. The company focused on fixed, mobile and converged networking hardware, IP technologies, software and services, and operated between 2006 and 2016 in more than 130 countries.
The Telstra Endeavour is a submarine cable connecting Sydney and Hawaii. The cable went live in October 2008, with a capacity of 1.28 terabits per second in the future. It was proposed on 28 March 2007 by Telstra, the largest telecommunications carrier in Australia.
The Corps des télécommunications was a French Technical "grand corps de l'Etat". It is formed of the State Engineers of the Telecommunications.
I-ME-WE is a 12,091-kilometre (7,513 mi) submarine communications cable system linking Europe and India via the Middle East. At launch, the design capacity was 3.84 Tbit/s, but after upgrades by Mitsubishi Electric in 2016, the new design capacity was rated at 5.6 Tbit/s. The cable entered service in December 2010.
Greenland Connect is a submarine communications cable system that connects Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. The cable contains two fibre pairs specified for 128*10 Gbit/s wavelength each. Initial lit capacity is 1*10 Gbit/s for each fibre pair. Two additional 10 Gbit/s Wavelength were installed in the summer of 2010. The cable has cable landing points at:
Europe India Gateway (EIG) is a submarine communications cable system that connects the U.K., Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India.
The West Africa Cable System (WACS) is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre pairs and is 14,530 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South Africa to London in the United Kingdom. It has 14 landing points, 12 along the western coast of Africa and 2 in Europe completed on land by a cable termination station in London. The total cost for the cable system is $650 million. WACS was originally known as the Africa West Coast Cable (AWCC) and was planned to branch to South America but this was dropped and the system eventually became the West African Cable System.
Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) is an optical-fiber submarine cable system serving 24 countries on the Europe, west coast and south Africa, managed by a consortium of 20 members.
Honotua is a submarine communications cable system that connects several islands of French Polynesia via Tahiti to Hawaii. The cable was laid by the cableship Île de Ré (câblier) between December 2009 and June 2010.
TE North is a submarine telecommunications cable linking France and Egypt developed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable system is 3,100 km long with a capacity of up to 1.28 Tbit/s over 8 fibre pairs. The cable system expands the service footprint of the existing TE transit corridor by offering additional transit services in the Mediterranean. The cable was launched in 2010 and was later upgraded to use 40G channels in the summer of 2011, becoming the first cable in the Mediterranean to use this technology. The cable has landing points in:
Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Abu Talat, Alexandria Governorate, Egypt
Radio Frequency Systems (RFS) is a designer and manufacturer of wireless and broadcast cable solutions and accessories. Established in 1900, RFS operates across multiple sectors, including telecommunications, broadcasting, and industries including rail and mining.
La Guinéenne de la Large Bande is a limited company in charge of managing the capacity allocated to Guinea on the Africa Coast Europe submarine cable (ACE) since March 2013.
South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5 is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore and France.
ALE International SAS, trading as Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, is a French software company headquartered in Colombes, France, providing communication equipment and services to telecommunications companies, ISPs and data providers. The company was founded after China Huaxin Post and Telecom Technologies acquired the enterprise division of Alcatel-Lucent in 2014. Since March 2019, Nicolas Brunel has served as President of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.
Alcatel SA was a French telecommunications company. In 2006, it acquired Lucent Technologies and renamed itself to Alcatel-Lucent S.A..
Africa-1 is a 10,000 km long international submarine telecommunications cable system from France to the Middle East, through Africa.
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