A consortium that comprises Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook, and others has announced their intention to construct an undersea cable network between the U.S. and Northern Europe. Route survey operations for the HAVFRUE submarine cable system have begun, with an eye toward making the submarine network ready for service in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The consortium has selected TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. Company (NYSE: TEL), to supply the necessary submarine network hardware. TE SubCom says its systems will support a cross-sectional cable capacity of 108 Tbps, with capacity increases possible via future hardware upgrades.
HAVFRUE (which means "mermaid" in Danish) will run from New Jersey (with connections to NJFX, in Wall, NJ, and 1025Connect in Long Island, NY) to the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark. A branch will add connectivity to County Mayo, Ireland. Optional branches to Northern and Southern Norway also can be accommodated, according to the consortium. Aqua Comms says it will serve as system operator and landing party in the U.S., Ireland, and Denmark. Bulk Infrastructure, a Norwegian real-estate and infrastructure developer, has responsibility for the optional branches to Norway. Bulk Infrastructure currently has a data center, dubbed N01 Campus, under construction in the southern portion of Norway.
Aqua Comms says it will market its portion of the HAVFRUE submarine cable as America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2); it operates America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1, also known as AEConnect) as well. The company notes it is has an additional undersea cable route to Denmark through the UK near completion. The submarine system includes CeltixConnect-2, which runs from Dublin to Manchester, as well as the North Sea Connect cable that will link Stellium's data center in Newcastle, England, to Esbjerg, Denmark.
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