Mayo County Council recently announced a project that will see Emerald Networks and Pipiper Infrastructure run a fibre cable from New York across the Atlantic Ocean to Iceland and Ireland, coming ashore at Belmullet.
The six pair fibre will cross approximately 5,300km sub-sea, with a potential capacity of 60 Terabits. Critically, the fibre link will be able to reduce transmissions times over the distance by up to four milliseconds, which in terms of an application such as financial trading can translate into savings of hundreds of millions of euros per year for companies using the link.
The announcement included details of the simultaneous creation of a dark fibre network by Pipiper Infrastructure. This network will provide a fully resilient transit of the country via Galway into Dublin with a redundant back-up link via Sligo into Letterkenny, joining the Project Kelvin cable that also connects to Dublin.
Speaking at announcement, an Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD said that these announcements "are part of the big picture that this country needs if we are to be where we want to be."
"We want to prove by 2016 that this is the best country in the world to do business. This means that connectivity has to be available at the highest level, right across the Country. This project is good for Ireland and I do like to think that when it is in operation that it brings this country not just up a notch or two but right to the top of global communications."
The fibre will go live in Q1 2013, effectively doubling existing capacity on the transatlantic route and with the latency reduction, offering Ireland a highly competitive position in communications between Europe and North America.
As well as providing vital links between the continent and North America, Ireland will become a more attractive place for foreign direct investment, particularly for data centres.
Supporting the initiative, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte TD said that the initiative would help to accelerate development in the western region.
Peter Hynes, Mayo County manager, thanked the various western local authorities and the Western Development Commission and noted that without the commitment and total generosity of the Marine Institute, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and The Irish Naval Service it would not have been possible to advance the project as quickly as it has been done.
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