Emerald Atlantis unveiled plans to build a 100 Gbps undersea cable system along the “Great Circle” route connecting North America to Europe via Iceland. The ambitious project, which has set a late 2012 commissioning date, aims to be the first 100 Gbps, long-haul, undersea fiber cable.
Emerald Express has been designed to support 100 x 100Gbs on each of its six fibre pairs.
Emerald Atlantis has already a construction contract to TE SubCom to proceed with the project. The first phase will provide both low-latency and ultra-high bandwidth capacity between the US, Canada, UK and Iceland, requiring 5,200km of advanced submarine fiber optic cable.
In addition to existing sources of trans-Atlantic traffic, Emerald Atlantis is betting on Iceland, with its cool climate and abundant hydro-electric and geothermal power, to emerge as a major data center hub. The connection to Iceland will be handled via a switchable spur.
Emerald Atlantis has the financial backing of Wellcome Trust, the £14 billion UK-based fund which has already made major investments in Icelandic data centres through its involvement with Verne Global.
“The Emerald Express system’s combination of a 100x100G per fibre pair design and ‘great circle’ routing for optimized trans-Atlantic low latency will enable Emerald Atlantis to meet the tremendous demand for bandwidth driven by cloud services, while providing Iceland with the required connectivity to support the anticipated explosive growth of low cost, 100% carbon free, renewable energy powered data centres, in which the Wellcome Trust, Emerald Atlantis’ largest shareholder and strategic partner, has a major investment,” said Greg Varisco, EA, President.
Emerald Atlantis is registered in the Isle of Man, is privately owned, operated and funded and has offices in Houston Texas and Reykjavik Iceland. http://www.EmeraldAtlantis.com http://www.tycotelecom.com
- Emerald Atlantis is headed by Fred Hoffman (Chief Executive Officer), a former Vice President of Royal Dutch Shell.
