Artic fibre linking Europe, North America and Asia

A Canadian company is taking advantage of the new sea routes that are opening up during the summer melt to lay a 24 TB fibre optic cable between Europe, North America and Asia. It will reduce the latency on Europe to Tokyo by 24ms to 154ms.

Users will need backup, because if this cable encounters a sub-glacial failure during the winter months, they will have to wait until summer for a ship to perform a repair. Of course the main cause of cable failure – anchor dragging and fishing will not be a problem during the winter. It is being laid in a 1 to 3m deep trench, rather than on the sea bed to further protect the cable. The Irish landing point will be in Cork.

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