In an announcement today, Hibernia Networks brought their plans for a new transatlantic cable off the back burner at last. The cable system will be called the Hibernia Express, and manufacturing has already commenced over at TE SubCom. I had heard that SubCom was on the job last year, but Hibernia itself had been rather quiet about it until now.
The 4,600km system will follow a unique low latency route and of course be built for 100G from the get go. With six fiber pairs, the total initial design capacity will add up to more than 53Tbps. The target date is the summer of 2015, just a year or so out — so they probably aren’t kidding around.
Hibernia’s prior plans had been for the Project Express cable with Huawei, which ran into a roadblock in part because of the security fears about the Chinese vendor. Those fears almost seem quaint now after Snowden’s NSA leaks and all the fallout, don’t they? But nevertheless it’s 2014 now and there’s finally a new Express on the drawing board.
I’m still looking to see what differences there are between the new plans for Hibernia Express and the prior effort. Since we haven’t heard about any new marine surveys, I’m guessing the main build is between Halifax and the UK, with Hibernia’s existing Massachusetts to Halifax picking up the other leg. Just what latency they will be offering between NYC and London has also not been quantified yet either.
If you haven't already, please take our Reader Survey! Just 3 questions to help us better understand who is reading Telecom Ramblings so we can serve you better!
Categories: Undersea cables
Join Our LinkedIn Group
You are always on top of yourgame Rob…! Great to see your informed coverage. Project Express is still as originally designed despite it now being with a new vendor. New submarine route between Halifax and Brean. Latency (100% 10G over fiber, not over 10Mbps microwave which we can do much faster) between NYC and London still sub 60msec.
Cheers, Bjarni