After the submarine cable has been designed inch-perfect, it is the next step where skills of geography are required. The construction of a submarine communications cable is not an easy matter. Furthermore, it is not an inexpensive job too. Skills and knowledge are required by engineers and workers whom are laying down the submarine communications cable. To ensure that the millions of dollars invested on the cable do not go to waste, every single precaution step must be taken to protract its life and in the same time the cable has to be laid in places where repairing even can take place easily if there is any damage has occurred to the cable. (Phungula M. 2014) It is known that the seabed is very similar to the dry land. It …show more content…
It happens when the light pulse broadens. When dispersion occurs excessively, the signal transmitted will be hard to read by the receiver. For an example, in a multimode fiber, when the LED or laser light projects down light, there will be a range of light wavelengths present. These wavelengths travel at different speeds than the others. This causes the waveforms to distort and causes errors in reading the signal in the other end of the cable. (Sheldon T. 2001) The graded-index cable is designed to minimize the delay of the slower …show more content…
If the sea that to be covered is below 400 km it is possible to transmit the signal without any disruptions. But what if it is more than 400km? The signal becomes so attenuated or dispersed. The signal needs to be boosted and re-shaped. And this is where repeaters are needed. These underwater repeaters are built within the cable. It is also powered via the cable. (Phungula M. 2014) It is very important to determine whether repeaters are needed or not because it can change the whole design of the cable.
The dimension of a typical repeater is 100 - 200 cm long, 30 - 50 cm in diameter. A single repeater weighs about 300-500 kg and cost $500,000 - 1000,000 USD each. A repeater has a lifetime of 25 years. It can withstand pressures up to 7000 meters depth without maintenance. The repeaters are assembled in a clean room to avoid any fault from occurring. If there is a repeater included the number of fiber pairs that are handled and the amplification characteristics has to be designed