CeltixConnect gets go-ahead to lay fibre under Irish Sea

10 Mar 2011

CeltixConnect has been given the go-ahead to deploy a sub-sea fibre cable linking Ireland and the UK. It has been awarded sub-sea consent by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after detailed consultation.

The CeltixConnect cable lands in the heart of Dublin’s business district at East Point Business Park and the Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC), connecting from there to the T50, Dublin’s major metropolitan network that links all key business districts, data centres and business parks.

In the UK, the privately owned carrier neutral sub-sea cable lands at Porth Dafarch, North Wales, where it will have the ability to connect to the Welsh Assembly-funded Fibre Speed, an open-access fibre-optic network that connects Holyhead, Wales, to Manchester, England, and also with a number of other major fibre-optic networks that connect into London and mainland Europe.

Diane Hodnett, CEO of CeltixConnect, said Ireland’s continued success in attracting digital services foreign direct investment is dependent on its ability to deliver on the fundamentals of high capacity communications infrastructure – the most critical of which is a modern sub-sea cable capable of transporting content and data in and out of the country securely and at the highest speeds.

“The awarding of the consent brings to a conclusion over two years of work and puts us on target to go live with the Celtix cable in June 2011.

“Recently, we have seen an even greater escalation in demand for resilient, higher capacity communications. CeltixConnect, through its most technically advanced infrastructure, will be uniquely positioned to deliver the platform necessary to underpin the growth of video, social and business networks, the burgeoning gaming industry and the unprecedented adoption of cloud computing,” Hodnett said.

Demand for high-speed fibre

Demand and traffic volumes related to the internet double every two years. Legacy networks globally are straining to accommodate the ever-increasing demand.

Demand in the corporate sector is being driven by the mounting adoption of cloud computing, including applications such as hosted email, CRM, streaming video and other applications; intensified regulation and compliance; the continued conversion of traditional business to internet-centric models; and the continuing explosion of online media – all of which needs to be transported, distributed and stored.

Together, these demand drivers are pushing the expansion of a digital world, founded on a fibre infrastructure of secure, high-capacity communications and highly available data centres. In addition, video-on-demand, IPTV peer-to-peer video and internet video is forecast to represent nearly 90pc of all consumer traffic by 2012.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com