There's nothing amusing about an undersea cable break. With downtime and restoration costs running as much as $10 million a day, faults have to be located and repaired swiftly. This requires experience, expertise and state of the art vehicles, all of which are standard in the ACMA!

By joining ACMA - the Atlantic Cable Maintenance & Repair Agreement - you'll save both time and money on cable maintenance.

Founded in 1965, ACMA is run as a purchasing consortium, acting purely in the interests of its members.  The entire ACMA maintenance operation - ships, ROVs, technical specialists - is under independent contract to dedicated third-party service providers. However, although the fleet is independent, its facilities are dedicated to the sole use of the ACMA members.

With no pressure to show a profit on such activities, ACMA is a genuinely cooperative organisation which can concentrate solely on the interests of its members.

As the fleet is operated by an independent management team (with formal performance indicators, such as cable loading and jointing times) ACMA members also benefit from improved quality and greater efficiency. Together, we can all make significant savings on cable maintenance, then pass these savings on as reduced costs to our customers.

The ACMA contracted fleet is the largest in the business, consisting of four ships, two each side of the Atlantic. To see the area that is covered by each ship, click on the button 'Transit Times'. (Time based on the ship transiting at 12.5 knots (300 NM a day). 

Each is equipped with an ROV and is staffed by fully qualified and experienced maintenance and cable jointing specialists. They are:

What will it cost you? Well, that depends. As ACMA is a non-profit making organisation, we simply split the costs between all our members. The more cable owners that join, the less membership costs. Membership is at an all-time high and prospects for continued growth remain for the foreseeable future.

Currently, a Transatlantic ring system costs approximately 2.5 - 3 million US Dollars per annum.

Whatever it costs you, it will certainly be less than the alternatives. With average repair times running to 12 days and the cost of a cable ship running into millions, an ad hoc repair arrangement is risky and expensive, assuming that a suitably equipped ship is available! In today's market, the likelihood of finding such a vessel in increasingly difficult! With the large size of the ACMA fleet, you are almost always assured of having a ship available

Think of ACMA rather like an insurance syndicate. Regular payments towards maintenance mean you don't have to face large, unexpected repair costs you can never budget for. And what price can you put on our years of collective experience and expertise?

Private maintenance arrangements cannot provide the level of service that the ACMA provides. If you are considering a private arrangement, you must be very careful in making the comparison of what you will get from the private provider as compared to what is contained in the ACMA offer. Make the comparison and you, too, will most likely make the same decision as the many ACMA member companies have made.

In good company

By joining ACMA, you'll be in good company. Based on both sides of the Atlantic, both north and south, our members demand excellence at every step, and know a good business opportunity when they see one. These are members who are already enjoying the most cost effective wet maintenance solution. Come join us, you will be glad you did!