Aqua Comms will interconnect its America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2) subsea cable system at Interxion’s data center in Copenhagen.
AEC-2 is Aqua Comms’s portion of the Havfrue subsea cable project, connecting New Jersey, U.S.A., to Ireland, and Denmark. The America Europe Connect-2 cable is scheduled to land in Blaabjerg, near Esbjerg in September 2019 and will be the first new cable connecting Denmark to the U.S. in nearly two decades.
Aqua Comms supplies fiber pairs, spectrum and capacity networking solutions to the global media, content and carrier markets.
“The large number of networks and content platforms present at Interxion’s Copenhagen campus makes it an efficient location for AEC-2 to interconnect with our target customers,” said Nigel Bayliff, CEO of Aqua Comms. “The investment Interxion is making to develop its campus in Copenhagen aligns with the growth in demand we are seeing for highly resilient network capacity between northern Europe and the U.S”.
AEC-2 will complement Aqua Comms’ existing transatlantic cable, AEC-1, and deliver on its vision of creating a “North Atlantic Loop”, a resilient dual-path network across the Atlantic. This will be further enhanced by North Sea Connect (NSC) from Denmark to the UK and Celtix-Connect-2 (CC-2) as a second Irish Sea cable crossing from the UK to Ireland, both of which will follow shortly after AEC-2.
“The AEC-1 subsea cable already extends to the Interxion facility in Dublin, so we are pleased to expand our collaboration with Aqua Comms on this new cable into Denmark,” said Peder Bank, Managing Director of Interxion, Nordics. “Our community of customers greatly value international capacity on diverse, modern and resilient routes which is exactly what the ring topology of the North Atlantic Loop provides. The system further strengthens Interxion’s position as the main Gateway to the Nordic Region”.
AEC-2 is scheduled to go live in the fourth quarter of 2019 and will more than double fiber connectivity to Denmark from the US, increasing the diversity and reliability of the Internet to the region. Aqua Comms investment in subsea cables to northern Europe complements Interxion’s increased investments in its Nordic data centers in Copenhagen and Stockholm.
HAVFRUE subsea cable to link NJ and Denmark with 108 Tbps capacity
TE SubCom will serve as the system supplier for HAFVRUE, a new subsea cable that will link New Jersey to the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark with a branch landing in County Mayo, Ireland. Optional branch extensions to Northern and Southern Norway are also included in the design.
The HAVFRU system will be owned and operated by multiple parties, including Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook, and others. Aqua Comms, the Irish cable owner/operator and carriers’ carrier, will serve as the system operator and landing party in U.S.A., Ireland, and Denmark. Bulk Infrastructure of Norway will be the owner and landing party for the Norwegian branch options.
The HAFVRUE subsea cable system will be optimized for coherent transmission and will offer a cross-sectional cable capacity of 108Tbps, scalable to higher capacities utilizing future generation SLTE technology. SubCom will incorporate their Wavelength Selective Switching Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (WSS-ROADM) for flexible wavelength allocation over the system design life. It is the first new cable system in almost two decades that will traverse the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S.A.
HAVFRUE is the Danish word for mermaid.
Preparation work is underway and system ready-for-service (RFS) is expected in Q4 2019.
“The HAVFRUE cable will provide state-of-the-art connectivity for increasing needs of users, ranging from individual consumers to businesses and the research community. SubCom is proud to be selected as the supplier for this project,” said Sanjay Chowbey, president of TE SubCom.
Google joins Havfrue and HK-G subsea cable projects
Google announced its participation in the HAVFRUE subsea cable project across the north Atlantic and in the Hong Kong to Guam cable system, both of which are expected to enter service in 2019.
In addition, Google confirmed that it is on-track to open cloud regions (data centers) in the Netherlands and Montreal this calendar quarter, followed by Los Angeles, Finland and Hong Kong.
HAVFRUE is the newly-announced new subsea cable project that will link New Jersey to the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark with a branch landing in County Mayo, Ireland. Optional branch extensions to Northern and Southern Norway are also included in the design. The HAVFRU system will be owned and operated by multiple parties, including Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook, Google and others. Aqua Comms, the Irish cable owner/operator and carriers’ carrier, will serve as the system operator and landing party in U.S.A., Ireland, and Denmark. Bulk Infrastructure of Norway will be the owner and landing party for the Norwegian branch options. The HAFVRUE subsea cable system will be optimized for coherent transmission and will offer a cross-sectional cable capacity of 108Tbps, scalable to higher capacities utilizing future generation SLTE technology. SubCom will incorporate their Wavelength Selective Switching Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (WSS-ROADM) for flexible wavelength allocation over the system design life. It is the first new cable system in almost two decades that will traverse the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S.A. TE Subcom is the system supplier.
The 3,900 kilometer Hong Kong – Guam Cable system (HK-G) will offer 48 Tbps of design capacity when it comes into service in late 2019. It features 100G optical transmission capabilities and is being built by RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI-C) and NEC Corporation with capital from the Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services Inc. (Japan ICT Fund), along with syndicated loans from Japanese institutions including NEC Capital Solutions Limited, among others. In Hong Kong, the cable is slated to land in Tseung Kwan O (TKO) and will land in Piti, Guam at the recently completed Teleguam Holdings LLC (GTA) cable landing station. HK-G will land in the same facility as the Southeast Asia – United States Cable System (SEA-US).
Google also noted its direct investment in 11 cables, including those planned or under construction:
Cable Year in service Landings
Curie 2019 US, Chile
Havfrue 2019 US, IE, DK
HK-G 2019 HK, GU
Indigo 2019 SG, ID, AU
PLCN 2019 HK, LA
Tannat 2018 BR, UY
Junior 2018 Rio, Santos
Monet 2017 US, BR
FASTER 2016 US, JP, TW
SJC 2013 JP, HK, SG
UNITY 2010 US, JP
