Interview
On the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026, we caught up with UltramapGlobal’s advertising lead Mychael Owen and co-founder Martin Connelly to debate the corporate’s function in securing submarine infrastructure
As geopolitical tensions and high-profile disruptions push submarine cables from the realm of invisible infrastructure into mainstream media headlines, subsea safety has immediately turn out to be a focus of world nervousness.
On the Submarine Networks EMEA 2026 occasion in London, the dialog naturally turned towards shielding these crucial knowledge arteries from each intentional hurt and unintended injury.
It was towards this backdrop that UltramapGlobal’s Mychael Owen and Martin Connelly mentioned the continued evolution of the corporate’s AssetMonitor platform. What started in 2022 as a deal with “promoting surety” for cable operators shortly advanced right into a data-driven virtuous cycle by 2023 as the corporate gained momentum, with extra clients main the corporate to undertake the ‘higher knowledgeable, higher protected’ mantra.
By 2024, the quickly scaling enterprise was pressured to interpret knowledge in totally new methods to satisfy various consumer reporting wants and, in 2025, AssetMonitor turned the world’s most used subsea cable monitoring software program.
Now the corporate is getting ready for additional progress because of its latest acquisition by Abingdon Software program Group. Removed from disrupting operations, the merger has supplied stability and continuity for current clients whereas supercharging the corporate’s capabilities.
“What they’ve given us is the power to innovate and add to the software program when we have to. We will do issues higher and larger than we had been in a position to earlier than,” defined Connelly, noting that the partnership has additionally dramatically elevated their worldwide scope.
Integrating Lumetec’s sensing know-how
The fruits of this newly expanded innovation capability are already on show. Ultramap World has just lately built-in Lumetec’s Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and State of Polarisation (SOP) know-how into the AssetMonitor platform, giving cable operators much more knowledge about their infrastructure’s surrounding setting.
“DAS can let you know an entire host of issues, together with the well being of the cable,” mentioned Connelly. “However the extra necessary factor for us is it’s a supply of details about the cable’s setting in real-time. For instance, if a fishing vessel is trawling close by, it will probably detect that exercise on the seabed.”
This reside environmental perception serves a number of crucial capabilities. It permits Ultramap to pre-emptively contact close by vessels to warn them of cable proximity. Moreover, it offers forensic proof of overhead exercise. Connelly identified that fishermen usually declare they raise their gear when approaching a cable, and this know-how verifies if they’re truly doing so. It’s equally precious for monitoring “darkish” vessels which have turned off their Computerized Identification System (AIS).
With this improve, cable operators stay grounded in factual safety primarily based on real-time suggestions.
“It’s all about coping with what’s truly taking place. A variety of the information just lately has been worry round what may occur. We have to hold it actual,” concluded Connelly.
How is connectivity for the UK’s crucial infrastructure evolving? Be a part of the discussions at Linked Britain 2026
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