At the Enda the line
First fibre-optic cable that directly links Ireland and US arrives
THE first ever fibre- optic cable directly linking Ireland and the US has reached our west coast.
Once it becomes operational next year, the cable will be able to carry enough data to handle all the traffic between Europe and the US – or one third of all the world’s telephone calls at any one time.
The Irish portion of the $300million, or €270million, cable was brought ashore in Killala, Co. Mayo, and according to its owners, Aqua Comms, it is the first and only dedicated modern subsea fibre- optic cable system running directly from Ireland to the US.
The AEConnect cable will support global data centres, cloudbased networks and content providers and will help keep Ireland at the forefront of the global telecommunications industry, said Enda Kenny who was present in Killala yesterday as the cable came ashore.
‘This transatlantic cable is a remarkable project which has extensive positive implications for Mayo and the west, potentially opening up the entire region for new investment,’ Mr Kenny said.
‘It will make the west a key gateway in the flow of information and data across the Atlantic. The delivery of advanced technological infrastructure in the area will provide a platform for data centres, content providers and other businesses to set up their operations in the region.’
The cable spans 5,475km from Long Island, New York to Mayo. A terrestrial connection will also run from Mayo to Dublin and then across the Irish Sea and on to London and mainland Europe via CeltixConnect, an existing subsea cable.
As well as being able to handle the entire data traffic between Europe and the US, the cable can provide for more than 1.6million ultra high- definition video channels running simultaneously, or more than 32million 4G wireless callers at any one time.
Bursts of data will cross the distance from Ireland to the US in just 0.05 of a second.
Aqua Comms chief financial officer Martin Roche boasts that the cable’s capacity can be i ncreased in f uture years as demands for data grow. ‘It will also be the most secure transatlantic cable system, due to the carefully mapped route and the design built into the construc- tion of this project,’ he said. ‘Following the successful completion of the landing of the cable in Killala, we will now seek to lay the remaining sections of the cable over the coming months, completing the project by December.
‘Once complete we believe this will be a major resource which will position Ireland and the western region as a critical infrastructure hub,’ Mr. Roche added.
He said that even though the cables run 5,500km in length, their dimensions are quite small.
‘The fibre optics themselves are only about the width of a hair and out product is light. We shoot it down those cables to transmit the data between two points,’ he told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland yesterday.
‘This is a system that will allow Ireland to transfer huge amounts of data between itself and America and on to Europe. There are very few of them in the world. This will be the first direct connection to the US from this country.’
Mr Roche explained there is a strategic advantage in locating the connection point in Mayo.
‘This puts us on the map. We introduced a company to Mayo yesterday who are already looking at opening another data centre in the region.
‘This has the largest amount of capacity of any submarine cable in the world right now.
‘That’s what’s being delivered to the west coast.’
$300m is how much the entire cable costs