Aqua Comms DAC, operator of Ireland’s first dedicated subsea optical network that interconnects New York, Dublin and London, has announced the appointment of two new members to its leadership team, namely Andy Hudson as Chief Networks Officer and Kevin Foley as Chief Financial Officer.
Andy Hudson
Aqua Comms’ new Chief Networks Officer, Andy Hudson, is a telecoms industry veteran with extensive experience in managing mobile, fixed and subsea operations. Most recently, he served as COO of the Bermuda Telephone Company, a subsidiary of Digicel, where he had operational responsibility for network planning and engineering, service delivery, maintenance, and data centre and facility management.
Kevin Foley
Mr. Foley, the company’s new Chief Financial Officer, has wide experience in the telecom industry, including in board level and executive leadership roles with companies in the carrier, interconnect, Internet, mobile, voice and TV sectors.
Before joining Aqua Comms, Kevin Foley served as CFO with Cable & Wireless Barbados (Flow), a Liberty Global company. He was also a board member of Cable & Wireless Communications Insurance and served in C-level positions at Cable & Wireless including CFO, Cayman Islands, and finance director of carrier services.
Aqua Comms noted that the additions to its leadership team follow a period of growth since the launch of the America-Europe Connect (AEConnect) trans-Atlantic cable system in January 2016. The company recently conducted tests of new transmission technologies designed to expand the systems total available capacity.
In addition, Aqua Comms is developing CeltixConnect-2, a diverse subsea cable system across the Irish Sea from Dublin to Manchester, with connectivity to the Isle of Man. CeltixConnect-2 is a resilient system designed to complement its existing CeltixConnect-1 cable. The new cable system will use advanced technology to support high transmission capabilities, including 8QAM and 16QAM. The company stated that survey work for CeltixConnect-2 is due to start in the next quarter.
Aqua Comms stated that it is also in the preliminary stages of development of North Sea Connect, which will provide a high capacity subsea link across the North Sea from the north east UK to Denmark. Additionally, Aqua Comms plans to expand connectivity to AEConnect at its PoP at 1025Connect in Westbury, New York, and to increase its footprint via new service capabilities in Ashburn, Virginia and at NJFX, a carrier-neutral colocation facility in Wall, New Jersey.
