Technology-Driven Cable Market Cycles

By José Chesnoy
January 18, 2026

The submarine telecom market has a reputation for being a cyclical market.

The market is fueled by the virtuous circle illustrated in Figure 1: a new technology allowing to increase the capacity of the cables reduces the cost per bit, and deployment induces new applications; the new applications themselves induce new capacity needs and the new capacity needs maintain and revive the market. This virtuous loop induces nevertheless oscillations and the oscillations are correlated with the technologies that succeed one another: when a technology is introduced, it triggers a market blooming, followed by a depression sometimes amplified by the expectation of a new technology coming soon.

This article illustrates the correlation between market cycles and technologies observed since the advent of optical fiber in submarine cables in years’1980 until today. Figure 2 shows the smoothed cable length laid (RFS) over the years 1987 to 2025 taken from the SubtelForum Industry Reports: the cycles are striking with variations between market highs and lows of a factor well above 10. These variations explain the submarine industry’s well-known reputation as a cyclical market; a reputation now embedded in the collective memory.

We comment below the Milestones indicated on this Figure 2:

MILESTONE 1: THE ADVENT OF SUBMARINE FIBER IN REGENERATED CABLES

The 1990s were marked by the advent of newly introduced optical fibers in regenerated cable systems, following the major transatlantic and transpacific systems, TAT 8 in 1988, and TPC3 in 1989. This was the first phase of global equipment with optical telecom cables. It was also the time when cable overtook satellite for the first time since the “early bird” in 1965, and the fear to disappear. The industrial tool took about ten years to establish. The peak was in the 1990s reaching 50,000 km of systems deployed per year, that look modest at present time, but these early submarine cables were jewels installed just to cover the modest pre-Internet market of voice with very few data.

The very promising application of optical amplification based on Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA) started its development in early 1990, and shortened the market life of regenerated systems, even inducing a market drop induced by customers waiting for the new technology.

Read the full article from issue 146 of the SubTel Forum Magazine