The Emirates is the first regionally in connection with the largest submarine cable network for communications

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The UAE leads regionally in connection with the largest submarine cable network dedicated to the telecommunications sector, while the country has become the headquarters of the largest global data center companies and the first regionally in terms of information traffic.

Telecom companies in the UAE have made large investments in submarine cables for the Internet to enhance the UAE’s position in data traffic around the world.
The main drivers behind the boom of submarine cables for the telecommunications sector in the UAE and the world are due to the wide spread of broadband technologies, the spread of mobile phones and the high rate of consumption of digital content. The strength of the infrastructure of submarine communications cables in the UAE encouraged international companies to establish their own data centers on the country’s land to take advantage of its strategic location between Asia and Africa.
economic effect
According to a recent report by the Abu Dhabi-based Interregional Center for Strategic Analyzes, submarine cables constitute a global infrastructure that transmits most of the data that is sent over the Internet.
It should be noted that there are currently about 500 submarine cables around the world. This makes the total length of cables exceed one million kilometers of optical fibres. Despite the importance of submarine cables to the global economy and our daily lives, this network often remains unprotected, which may raise some concerns and concerns.
Imminent risks
The Interregional Center said: The most frequent damage to cables, which causes approximately 150 to 200 breakdowns annually, is the accidental physical damage resulting from commercial fishing and shipping, in addition to underwater earthquakes or strategic disruptions to international cable networks during periods of conflict, which causes great economic losses.
reform challenges
The capacity to repair submarine cables is greatly affected by the lack of specialized repair vessels as there are only 60 repair vessels operating worldwide. Many of these ships were operated during the Internet boom of the 1990s; And so it gets old quickly. The shortage of repair vessels represents a fundamental challenge to the current submarine cable structure.
Protecting submarine cables that stretch thousands of miles in deep waters is a huge challenge, and it is also very expensive. Large submarine cables cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and are usually funded by a group of technology or telecom companies that can share the costs and risks.
dark cables
“In terms of building additional capabilities, the main data routes could be supported by additional ‘dark cables’, which are cables that are preferably not recorded on maps or buried at great depths,” says Interregional.
To better detect threats, the cables could be equipped with sensors to identify the sonar frequencies used by submarines trying to intervene, and a fleet of unmanned marine vehicles could be deployed to carry out maintenance patrols in areas where the cable networks are located.