When people think of the Internet, they often picture satellites, Wi-Fi, or even cellular towers. But the reality is that over 99 percent of all international data traffic travels through subsea fiber optic cables. These cables, which run thousands of meters beneath our oceans and link continents together, form the backbone of global connectivity. They power everything from financial transactions to cloud computing and AI. Without this infrastructure, modern digital life simply wouldn’t be possible. Under the mantra “for the industry, by the industry,” SubOptic serves as the global association for the subsea telecommunications industry. It has two main pillars:
- The SubOptic Association is a not-for-profit organization that enables industry stakeholders to collaborate, share knowledge openly, and establish best practices in a neutral forum for the global subsea telecoms industry.
- The SubOptic Foundation, focuses on attracting and empowering the next generation through education and research. Their mission is to ensure a sustainable and innovative workforce that addresses evolving challenges and to bring together companies, engineers, policymakers, educators, researchers, and innovators to tackle challenges and promote the growth of digital infrastructure worldwide.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erick Contag is a seasoned strategist driven by his passion for building and managing sustainable digital infrastructures. With over 25 years of executive management, entrepreneurship, marketing & sales, and business development experience, he specializes in building high-performance teams, fostering growth, and scalability.
Contag has been responsible for managing C-level relationships and telecommunications / high-technology projects for start-up enterprises through large, multi-national, and Global 100 companies in the US and Latin America. He has proven success in starting, building, and operating telecommunications and subsea networks as well as colocation data centers, infrastructure, and high-tech businesses. Contag was thrice awarded the Global Telecoms Business Power 100 Award, an honor bestowed upon the most powerful 100 executives in the telecom industry.
Contag holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tulsa and an Executive Engineering Management certification from Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA). More recently, he attended the Executive Program at Singularity University.
Lynsey Thomas is an independent subsea specialist who has been involved in the international subsea business since 1995 and directing LT consulting since 2018. She piloted the first mentorship program for SubOptic and is serving as Program Chair for the SubOptic 2025 conference, to be held in Lisbon in June of 2025.
Previously, she has held senior positions in Cable & Wireless, Apollo SCS, Xtera, and SubSea Networks Ltd. and is a board member for Cirion Technologies. She holds a master’s degree in engineering science from the University of Oxford.
