Beacon Dodsworth software speeds up cable route planning

The seabed of most of the world's oceans is littered with cables, all laid in the last hundred years or so. They carry phone and internet traffic in almost unbelievable volumes.

The recently completed Gemini fibre-optic cables across the North Atlantic, can handle over a million calls at any one time. Compared to satellite, fibre-optic cable has enormous capacity, is more secure and cost effective.

Owning a fleet of 14 ships - as well as specially chartered ships - Cable & Wireless Global Marine install, maintain and repair cable on the seabed constantly. Minimising these costs is critical when designing a cable route.

Global Marine's cable data is stored on an Intergraph MGE system. They use the system to create a seamless world map combining cable routes, coastline and bathymetry (underwater depth) files all in their precise geographical locations. Geomedia GIS software is now being installed to allow users to view graphic data in combination with other datasets. This has become known as ‘GeoCable’

Intergraph approached Beacon Dodsworth to develop a route planning module for GeoCable.

Cable locations, known as Route Position Lists or RPLs, are stored in Excel spreadsheets. Beacon Dodsworth provided the interface software for importing and exporting between GeoMedia and RPLs. This means that RPLs can be overlaid immediately on marine charts and other seabed features to identify the route. The export module is particularly flexible in calculating the crossings of a planned cable with other cables, pipelines, etc. These crossings are a large determinant in the cost of laying a new cable. Because these calculations could take several days and now only take minutes, several more route options can be tried allowing for a much greater degree of optimisation.

Terry Allen, Charting Services Manager at Global Marine stated:

"The RPL import/export facility is a fundamental component of GeoCable and has greatly enhanced our route–planning capability in terms of time and cost savings. Our route engineers will be able to carry out rapid, detailed on-screen planning, overlaying new routes on navigation charts. The response time to our Customers is improved right through the process"