| Havfrue/AEConnect 2 | |
|---|---|
| Owners: Aqua Comms, Facebook, Google, Bulk Infrastructure | |
Landing points
| |
| Total length | 7851 km |
| Design capacity | 108Tbps |
| Technology | Fiber optics |
Havfrue (Mermaid) is a submarine communications cable privately owned by Aqua Comms, Meta, Google and Bulk Infrastructure, linking the United States, Ireland and Denmark.
Havfrue comprises a main trunk beginning in New Jersey, USA (NJFX) and landing in Blaabjerg, Denmark, which comprises six fiber pairs. Two further branches connect Ireland (Old Head Beach, Leckanvy), with six fiber pairs and Norway (Kristiansand) with two fiber pairs. [1]
The cable was laid by TE SubCom and has a designed capacity of 108 Tbit/s. The operator and landing party in the US, Ireland and Denmark is Aqua Comms, which will market and sell capacity services and raw spectrum under the brand name 'America Europe Connect-2' (AEC-2). [2] [3]
Bulk Fibre Networks is utilising Ciena’s Spectrum Sharing submarine network infrastructure to provide tailored virtual fiber pairs on its part of the infrastructure, as well as Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution and Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller, which provides network management capabilities. [4]
The Havfrue/AEC-2 cable system was ready for service by 1 December 2020. [5]
In 2023, EXA Infrastructure added Havfrue to its transatlantic subsea cable route network connecting USA and Europe. [6]
TAT-14 was the 14th consortium transatlantic telecommunications cable system. In operation from 2001 to 2020, it used wavelength division multiplexing. The cable system was built from multiple pairs of fibres—one fibre in each pair was used for data carried in one direction and the other in the opposite direction. Although optical fibre can be used in both directions simultaneously, for reliability it is better not to require splitting equipment at the end of the individual fibre to separate transmit and receive signals—hence a fibre pair is used. TAT-14 used four pairs of fibres—two pairs as active and two as backup. Each fibre in each pair carried 16 wavelengths in one direction, and each wavelength carried up to an STM-256. The fibres were bundled into submarine cables connecting the United States and the European Union in a ring topology.
A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable connecting one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, each cable was a single wire. After mid-century, coaxial cable came into use, with amplifiers. Late in the 20th century, all cables installed use optical fiber as well as optical amplifiers, because distances range thousands of kilometers.
A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the seabed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables were laid beginning in the 1850s and carried telegraphy traffic, establishing the first instant telecommunications links between continents, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable which became operational on 16 August 1858.
Hibernia Networks, alternately known as Hibernia Atlantic, was a privately held, US-owned provider of telecommunication services. It operated global network routes on self-healing rings in North America, Europe and Asia including submarine communications cable systems in the North Atlantic Ocean which connected Canada, the United States, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. Hibernia managed cable landing stations in Dublin, Republic of Ireland; Coleraine, Northern Ireland; Southport, England; Halifax, Canada; Lynn, Massachusetts, United States.
A cable landing point is the location where a submarine or other underwater cable makes landfall. The term is most often used for the landfall points of submarine telecommunications cables and submarine power cables. The landing will either be direct or via a branch from a main cable using a submarine branching unit. The branch can be several kilometres long.
The West Africa Cable System (WACS) is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre pairs and is 14,530 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South Africa to London in the United Kingdom. It has 14 landing points, 12 along the western coast of Africa and 2 in Europe completed on land by a cable termination station in London. The total cost for the cable system is $650 million. WACS was originally known as the Africa West Coast Cable (AWCC) and was planned to branch to South America but this was dropped and the system eventually became the West African Cable System.
Equiano is a private transatlantic communications cable that connects western Europe (Portugal) with southern Africa. Branching points along the way connect to Togo, Nigeria, the island of St. Helena and Namibia.
EllaLink is an optical submarine cable linking the European and South American continents with landing points in Sines in Portugal and Fortaleza in Brazil. It has currently the lowest latency on the market.
West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) operates as a wholesaler, providing capacity to international telecoms, cloud operators, content providers and internet service providers within and out of Africa. WIOCC offers carriers connectivity to over 550 locations across 30 African countries – utilising more than 75,000 km (47,000 mi) of terrestrial fibre and 200,000 km (120,000 mi) of submarine fibre-optic cable. WIOCC's international network reach currently extends to 100 cities in 29 countries in Europe and more than 700 cities in 70 countries globally.
MAREA is a 6,605 km long transatlantic communications cable connecting the United States with Spain. Owned and funded by Microsoft and Facebook, but constructed and operated by Telxius, a subsidiary of the Spanish telecom company Telefónica, it is the "highest-capacity submarine cable in the world" with a system design capacity of 200 terabits per second as of 2019.
NJFX, also known as New Jersey Fiber Exchange, is a Wall Township, New Jersey–based data center and subsea cable landing station operator. The company offers Tier 3 data center, meet-me room and colocation services, and a cable landing station on a 58 acre campus.
AEConnect (AEC-1) is a submarine communications cable privately owned by Aqua Comms linking the United States and Ireland. The cable has extended connectivity via the CeltixConnect cable to London. Originally the cable project was called Emerald Express managed by Emerald Networks, and was intended to include a cable landing in Iceland, however after being unable to secure funding the project ownership was transferred to the current owner.
Dunant is a private 250 Tbit/s 6,600 kilometre transatlantic communications cable that connects the United States with France (Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez). Named for Henry Dunant, it was announced by Google in 2018 and went live in 2020.
2Africa is an international submarine telecommunications cable that circumnavigates the coastline of Africa to interconnect Europe and the Middle East.
Grace Hopper is a private transatlantic communications cable that connects the United States of America with the UK (Bude) and Spain (Bilbao). It was announced by Google in 2020 and scheduled to go live in 2022. The US to UK (Bude) leg went live on 27 September 2022.
Amitié is a private transatlantic communications cable that connects the United States (Lynn), with the UK (Bude) and France. It was announced in 2020 and went live in October 2023. In 2023, EXA Infrastructure added Amitié to its transatlantic subsea cable route network connecting USA and Europe.
Submarine internet cables, also referred to as submarine communications cables or submarine fiber optic cables, connect different locations and data centres to reliably exchange digital information at a high speed.
PEACE Cable, which stands for Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe, is a submarine cable project designed to facilitate data transmission between Asia, Europe, and Africa. It is owned by Peace Cable International, a subsidiary of Hengtong Group. The 15,000 km cable system is deployed along the seafloor of the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, with plans to extend the cable length to 25,000 km. It is based on WSS ROADM technology with a design capacity of 24 Tbit/s per fiber pair. The cable entered service and became fully operational in December 2022.
EXA Infrastructure is a digital infrastructure platform and cable network connecting Europe and North America owning over 110,000 km of fibre network in 34 countries. It owns and manages extensive terrestrial and subsea fiber networks, including Dunant, Havfrue, and Amitie. It was established in the 2000s as part of joint projects by Hibernia Networks, Interoute and KPN.
