Chinese vendor Huawei’s marine division is gearing up to lay the first new trans-Atlantic cable linking the UK to the US in over a decade.
Huawei Marine Networks will begin constructing a 40G, four fiber pair repeated submarine cable for Hibernia Atlantic, which will connect the UK to New York via a landing point in Canada. The 4,600 km subsea link is scheduled to be operational by mid-2013, and will eventually be upgraded to 100G technology.
Hibernia Atlantic chief Bjarni Thorvardarson called the Huawei construction contract “a major milestone,” in improving its current Global Financial Network, which links hundreds of global banks and financial exchanges via a single connection. The firm claims the Huawei deployment – named Project Express – will maintain its position as provider of the fastest trans-Atlantic connectivity.
The firm has specified five branching units be included in the build, to enable it to add connections to the US, Europe and Ireland in future.
Nigel Bayliff, chief executive of Huawei Marine, says the new network offers a major boost to financial markets. “We believe that the Hibernia Atlantic Express will be a huge contributor to the faster transport of critical transactions from one key financial city or exchange to the next,” he comments.