In a huge yellow metal tank, 10 meters in diameter and 9 meters high, two men help a black cable, barely thicker than a garden hose, to roll up on itself. The slightest twist is forbidden: behind layers of plastic, steel wire, copper and zinc hide 24 pairs of optical fibers on which, once deposited at the bottom of the oceans, the global Internet traffic will pass.
The meticulousness of these two “lovers” – the nickname of these technicians that the robots failed to replace – also serves to store up to 1,200 kilometers of submarine cables in the limited volume of a single tank. “One of the key factors in the smooth running of our business is knowing how to store an extremely bulky product”, explains Thomas Lecointe, operational director of Alcatel Submarine Network (ASN), from the top of a footbridge of the Calais plant of the group. Because, once assembled before being embarked on a laying vessel, a cable can measure up to 7,000 kilometers in length. We understand the obsession with storage for the first European manufacturer of optical submarine cables, a legacy of the former Alcatel, now owned by the Finnish telecom equipment manufacturer Nokia.
While human arms remain essential for storage, ASN has benefited from a technological helping hand since November. Thanks to the commissioning of a 5G mobile telephone network to which laser sensors are connected, the manufacturer measures precisely and in real time the size of the 130 tanks and the height of their filling. This gives him a perfect view of resources, inventory and the progress of the process, all essential data for the ramp-up of the factory’s production to meet the explosion in demand for cables from GAFA, Google and Meta in the lead. Over the past two years, ASN has invested 80 million euros to increase the production capacity of the Calais plant by 25%.
“Vital for our production”
“5G is vital for our production”, says Alain Biston, CEO of ASN. Formerly at Nortel, the Canadian specialist in mobile networks before its bankruptcy in 2009, it was he who had the idea of going to see the parent company, Nokia, to build this 5G mobile network, operated by Free, available in indoors and outdoors, up to the cable loading dock on ships. It cost “several million euros”, indicates without further details Mr. Biston, of which about a third is supported by the France Relance plan. For the CEO, 5G is a real plus. “Use in the tank has shown employees that it simplifies their lives. The teams have since imagined twenty other applications on this new wireless network., underlines Mr. Biston. For example, it will make it possible to precisely geolocate all equipment, which will save time and kilometers for employees. Given the length of the production process, some technicians walk more than 13 kilometers a day.
You have 54.43% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.