What is PIOCMA?
The Mutual Assistance Agreement for Pacific and Indian Ocean Cable Maintenance (PIOCMA) is an agreement to provide the owners of submarine cable systems in the Pacific and Indian Oceans additional maintenance and repair coverage at no additional cost.
The number one priority for all submarine cable system owners is to ensure that their cables are performing at peak performance levels and that they can be repaired swiftly and properly if there should be a cable break. Although a few private submarine cable systems have decided to sign a private maintenance contract, the great majority of the world’s submarine cable systems are maintained within a Zone Maintenance Agreement, and there are a number of very good reasons for this:
1. sharing the high costs of the ships and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) among a very large number of cable systems makes the costs very attractive economically;
2. all repairs are done at cost, with no markup. This helps ensure that the repair work is done properly as there is no financial incentive for the operator to „rush“ the repair in order to save some money;
3. the cable owners manage both the Zone Agreement and associated Service Contracts.
4. There is an additional benefit in that most of the Parties to the Zone Agreements have multi-year experiences in submarine cable system maintenance and repair and are always willing to share their experience or offer suggestions. This no-cost font of knowledge and experience has been a tremendous help to some newer members.
5. The annual meetings of the Zone Management Committees provide a forum to discuss items of interest for the submarine cable community and to share areas of concern and to resolve common problems.
When first established, most of the Zone Maintenance Agreements had a single cable ship serving the cable systems in that area. The need of having some kind of back-up arrangement became quickly evident. During 1983 and early 1984, some of the world’s largest telecommunications companies in the Eastern Hemisphere met to discuss how this need could best be met. The result of this work was the establishment in 1984 of PIOCMA, whose purpose is to provide all necessary arrangements for the povision of mutual assistance by a cable ship, including where necessary any associated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). The basis of these arrangements is cooperative action among the Parties to provide an efficient and economical solution for the mutual benefit of the Parties.
Although many of the Zone Maintenance Agreements now have the services of more than one cable ship, the benefits available from PIOCMA in the event of some catastrophic occurance, have continued to make PIOCMA an important asset in the fight to keep cable systems, and the communications traffic that use them, functioning properly, in spite of the threat of damage from storms, undersea earthquakes, fishing trawlers or the occasional errant anchor.
In PIOCMA, there are approximately 260,000 kilometers of cable lying on or under the seabed over an area of approximately 240,000,000 square kilometers.
The Hawaii Zone Agreement expired at the end of 2004, and the contract for service in the Fiji Zone was terminated in 2004. The current PIOCMA agreements are the North America Zone Agreement whose boundaries are in the north the Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska; in the east by the Americas mainland; and in the west by a line of demarcation with the adjacent Yokohama Zone at approximately 167° West Longitude. The Yokohama Zone is bounded in the east by the demarcation line with the North America Zone at approximately 167° West Longitude; in the west by the Eurasian Continent; and to the south by the line of demarcation with the South East Asia and Indian Ocean Cable Maintenance Agreement. The South East Asia and Indian Ocean Cable Maintenance Agreement stretches from Djibouti to Guam and from Taiwan to Australia, and covers an area of approximately one-third of the earth’s oceans.
For information about Zone Maintenance Agreements, please contact the following Zone Chairman:
For information about PIOCMA, please contact PIOCMA Chairman, Mr. David Anderson, AT&T, at da1432@att.com .