AEConnect Gets Its Final Splice

Aqua Comms reached another milestone in the construction of AEConnect yesterday. They have completed the final splice on the marine segment of the submarine cable system as the project moves into the home stretch. 

With its ready-for-service date now set for January 31, 2016, AEConnect will soon bring 130x100Gbps of capacity per fiber pair to bear between New York City and Dublin, Ireland. From there it will leverage the recently built CeltixConnect cable to reach over to England and down to London. It also has branching units offshore for future extensions, with direct connectivity to continental Europe and/or to points in Scandanavia or Iceland.

AEConnect will be the second transatlantic buildout to be completed in quick succession after a decade-long drought, joining Hibernia Express which went into service in September. Whereas Hibernia Express focused much of its efforts on lowering latency, AEConnect has zeroed in on physical security, minimizing the amount of continental shelf it traverses and avoiding major fishing grounds and anchorages in order to lower the risks of damage.  Both cables have paid special attention to the growing bandwidth markets in Ireland, which is finally on the infrastructure map.

In October as the cable ships of TE Subcom were out doing their thing, we had Aqua Comms CTO Tom McMahon here to give us the lowdown on the project.  It has been a busy year in the Atlantic.  But when springtime comes, the action will be all done, for now at least.  We will just have to see what new projects arise.

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Categories: Undersea cables