Cable layers, SubCom · ASN · NEC · HMN

Only four industrial firms know how to manufacture and lay transoceanic cables: the American SubCom, the French ASN (taken over by the state via Nokia), the Japanese NEC and the Chinese HMN Tech, formerly Huawei Marine, under US sanctions. NEC owns no cable ship of its own and must charter. The market has split into two geopolitical blocs, each project becoming a national-security stake.