FEATURE
THE NORTH ATLANTIC LOOP BY CHRIS BAYLY
A
qua Comms, the independent carriers’ carrier and the owner-operator of five subsea cables will be launching its North Atlantic Loop in the second half of 2020. The North Atlantic Loop will comprise of two major Trans-Atlantic cables and three regional cables to bring to the market diverse, resilient and uniquely routed subsea cables. These will combine to deliver enhanced capacity services to the North Atlantic markets of the US, through to Ireland, the UK and the Nordics – all with diverse routing and landings. This new offering will provide critical infrastructure to key data centre markets as well as the major telecoms markets within the east coast of the US and western Europe. Two of the 5 cable systems in play are: • AEC-1 (America-Europe Connect-1) that went RFS in 2016 and runs from New York to Dublin • CC-1 (CeltixConnect-1) that went RFS in 2012 and runs from Dublin to Wales and on to London
Three new cable systems are expected to go live in 2020: • AEC-2 (America-Europe Connect-2) from New Jersey (NJFX) to Denmark (Blaabjerg) • CC-2 (CeltixConnect-2) from Dublin (Clonshaugh) to UK (Blackpool) • NSC (North Sea Connect) from UK (Newcastle) to Denmark (Houstrup)
JULY 2020 | ISSUE 113
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