Pictured: Open Eir’s Adrian Marron and Aqua Comms’ Martin Reilly
Aqua Comms, owner of the the $300m transatlantic fibre network AEConnect, has selected Eir’s wholesale arm Open Eir to provide the data-centre-to-data-centre connectivity as it comes ashore, as part of a €5m deal.
Last year, it emerged that Aqua Comms was building a $300m fibre network running directly from Ireland to the US that would be capable of handling one-third of the world’s voice traffic and all of Europe and the US’ data traffic.
The final splice of the network was completed in the middle of the Atlantic ocean last December, and the network was scheduled to go live in January of this year.
‘Dublin is already home to one of the largest clusters of data centres in Europe’
– ADRIAN MARRON, OPEN EIR
“We needed a flexible and responsive terrestrial wholesale partner that could provide the fibre capacity, reach and security to reliably connect the cable landing station in Killala to our data centre locations in Dublin,” explained Martin Reilly, vice president of sales, cloud and content at Aqua Comms.
“As our customer needs expand, we require the ability to scale the network capacity. Open Eir’s proposition met our needs and they were able to complete the work, ensuring Aqua Comms’ challenging timescales were satisfied.”
Transatlantic fibre connection
The multi-million-euro deal with Open Eir enables Aqua Comms to connect its $300m, 5,536km transatlantic subsea cable system to Dublin data centres from its Killala cable landing station through this 350km terrestrial fibre connection.
From Dublin, the system links to the existing Aqua Comms Irish Sea Fibre network, CeltixConnect, and on to Wales and major data centres in London.
On the US side, the cable landing station connects to major data centres throughout New York City and New Jersey.
“Dublin is already home to one of the largest clusters of data centres in Europe,” said Adrian Marron, head of sales and service management at Open Eir.
“Several IT multinationals currently have vast data centres under construction here as an increasing number of US companies view Ireland as a key entry point to access large European markets.
“By partnering with Open Eir, Aqua Comms’ customers are guaranteed one of most secure and fastest transits from major Dublin-based data centres to New York, London and Europe,” Marron said.
