Infrastructure for the modification and maintenance of legacy undersea cables

The use of legacy undersea cables for scientific applications requires a specialized capability to recover, modify and reinstall the in-water cable plant and reactivate the shore terminus. The telecommunications companies and their support infrastructure have abandoned the analog cables leaving the scientific community to look elsewhere for support, or to provide their own solutions. The undersea training systems used by the U.S. and other navies have used these legacy cables for their systems. A typical range system has a service life in excess of 20 years and requires some level of service. The contractors responsible for the design, manufacture and installation of these systems have maintained capabilities for repair and modification for SD, SF and other analog cable based systems. Cost effective installation and recovery is based on a ship-of-opportunity approach. Materials and services are available for cable jointing including strength member and dielectric reconstitution for all types of both SD and SF cables, cable termination, repeaters, demultiplexers and system power.