6 QUESTIONS WITH SEAN BERGIN:

Talking Technology Trends with APTelecom’s President & Co-Founder

March 17, 2021

1. What is APTelecom’s mission?

Officially, our mission is to help enable our customers to achieve their commercial objectives by providing value through experience-based expert consulting in the monetization of their connectivity assets and more so these days, in various data centre markets. We now also find ourselves supporting due diligence activities being undertaken by investors & lenders seeking to understand the connectivity space in this ‘new world’ of convergence.

With regard to the monetization of connectivity assets, we are focussed on continually finding ways to innovate in the way we prepare our clients and their products for short- and long-term success, regardless of their endgame. We have developed an extended portfolio of clients which now also include satellite and data centres which is a direct response to the convergence that we see occurring right now across various connectivity technologies.

Understanding our client’s business inside and out along with the industry as a whole, sets us up well to support not just subsea, but a variety of players in congruent verticals, such as debt and equity providers seeking to better understand the space.

APTelecom has moved way beyond simple subsea pre-sales & monetization, although we do remain true to our roots.

2. How does APTelecom participate in the submarine cable market?

You could argue that we are Pioneers in subsea pre-sales. We have helped in excess of $2 billion worth of systems achieve ready for service status over the last decade. No one else has been focussed on this space.

The submarine cable market however, is changing and again, it’s all down to convergence. Now, when looking at monetization and commercialization aspects of new systems, one needs to take into account the data centre environment (core and edge), who the most appropriate joint built partners may be and beyond sales, where the debt and/or equity will come from. We see ourselves playing an integral role in all of these elements.

3. Is APTelecom currently involved with any new submarine cable projects?

Absolutely. As mentioned earlier, APTelecom remains true to its roots and subsea pre-sales on new systems being developed, is still a key pillar of our business and we are really good at it. Working with clients in a ‘pre-CIF’ environment to help them monetize, understand real demand rather than desktop demand, develop pricing models, short and long term cashflow forecasts, etc., provides APTelecom with a looking glass into the future because we are in these new builds so early. We get to understand and play a role in emerging ‘hot’ markets years before they become so.

This ‘looking glass’ underpins and provides significant value to those in the data center market looking to jump into emerging hubs sooner than the competition and it also provides debt and equity players with insight on what’s happening where and when, well into the future.

Currently, APTelecom is involved in new subsea projects in a variety of markets, such as India – SE Asia (Singapore, Indonesia & Thailand), Trans-Atlantic, Africa, North Pacific, Mid-Pacific and the Americas. This spread of clients across multiple geographies, gives us a good read on what’s happening in each market and of course, their relationship to each other.

To continue reading the rest of this article, please read it in Issue 117 of the SubTel Forum Magazine on page 16 or on our archive site here.