[about new cables laid by FLAG and SEA-ME-WE-4] -- suresh ramasubramanian suresh@outblaze.com gpg EDEDEFB9 manager, security and antispam operations, outblaze ltd

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/business/10cable.html?th=&pagewanted=all&position= New Undersea Cable Projects Face Some Old Problems By KEN BELSON

Published: May 10, 2004

It has been several years since executives in the undersea cable industry had anything to cheer about. Nearly every company that strings fiber optics across oceans has been restructured or has gone bankrupt. Lease prices for cable lines have collapsed and are still falling. Bankers pulled the plug on most new projects long ago because so much cable was already sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

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The projects - the Falcon cable financed privately by Flag Telecom and the Sea-Me-We 4 line built by a consortium of global telephone companies led by Singapore Telecommunications - are nothing if not

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But the operators of the new cable lines face the same problems that sank many competitors. Chief among them is that the amount of capacity being added far outpaces growth in Internet use and demand for long-haul lines. Until this changes, prices will slide, making it

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Mr. Rawle also expects demand for data links from countries in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea to the rest of the world to increase 38 percent a year on average through 2013. The problem is

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"If you're a buyer, that's the side you want to be on," said David W. Dorman, the chairman and chief executive of AT&T, which has not built undersea cables since 1999. "Any time I hear someone is going to build another cable, we go, 'Bravo.' " But Mr. Dorman added that as a business proposition, "I wouldn't be putting any new cable into the ocean right now."