Research note · October 2026
Submarine cable repair response times have more than doubled
The time from a reported fault to the start of a repair grew from under 20 days in 2012 to more than 50 days in 2024, according to the ITU's International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience.
What the reports say
The ITU advisory body attributes the growth mainly to permitting and to the limited number of repair vessels. It puts typical vessel mobilisation at three to five days.
A June 2025 study sponsored by SubOptic, The Future of Submarine Cable Maintenance by Mauldin and Burdette (TeleGeography) and Constable (Infra-Analytics), gives repair vessel transit times of about seven to eight days, and up to two weeks.
What is not measured
Neither report breaks the on-site part of a repair into steps with published durations. We found no peer-reviewed source that does. Any claim about where the on-site time goes should be treated as an estimate until operators publish data.
Sources
- ITU International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, 2026 publication. itu.int (PDF)
- Mauldin, A., Burdette, T., Constable, M. The Future of Submarine Cable Maintenance: Trends, Challenges, and Strategies. SubOptic-sponsored study, June 2025, section 3.1. telegeography.com (PDF)