Europe’s first subsea cable project in over a decade is on-track to be completed by December after receiving a new $7.5 million (€5.4 million) loan facility.
Investec Project and Infrastructure Finance, the investment arm of Investec Bank, led the arrangement of the loan to Sea Fibre Networks, which will use the funds to finance rollout of a fiber optic cable linking Ireland with the UK mainland – the first subsea deployment in the region since 2000.
The finance comprises half of a $15 million funding round, with additional equity from mostly US investors.
Sea Fiber chief Diane Hodnett says the investment is key to her firm’s “ability to commission the first European subsea cable laid in eleven years,” and that the firm is “on-track to complete the subsea lay in December 2011.”
Company information promises the cable will deliver low latency due to covering a distance of just 131 km, and will link to the rest of Europe via existing UK fiber networks.