£28m US telecoms link announced
Updated on 06 January 2009
Ireland is to have its first direct telecommunications link to North America providing faster and cheaper broadband, it has been confirmed.
A £28 million contract to lay an undersea cable has been awarded to Hibernia Atlantic Limited following a competitive tender process.
Project Kelvin is a cross-border venture co-financed under the EU's INTERREG IVA in a partnership between the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Irish Department of Communication, Energy and Natural Resources.
Hibernia Atlantic is committed to completing construction no later than March next year and to operate it until December 2018.
Access to the new telecommunications link will be available on both sides of the border, delivering direct links with the US and improved communication connections to Europe.
Project Kelvin will involve connecting a new submarine cable to the Hibernia North Transatlantic cable located 22 miles off Northern Ireland's north coast. The new cable will come ashore in the Portrush area and then on to a location where it can interconnect with the province's existing telecoms infrastructure at a number of locations including Armagh, Ballymena, Belfast, Coleraine, Londonderry, Omagh, Portadown and Strabane in the north.
In the south it will ensure Letterkenny, Monaghan, Castleblaney, Drogheda and Dundalk have direct international connectivity.
Announcing the award of the contract, Stormont Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said: "This 30 million euro investment will, for the first time, provide Northern Ireland with a direct telecommunications link to North America and greatly improve competition in the international telecommunications market.
"Northern Ireland businesses are competing more than ever for business in global markets. This project will deliver the kind of international telecommunications, companies located in London, Amsterdam, Dublin and New York already depend on."
She said it would provide opportunities for Northern Ireland companies selling goods and services overseas and also improve our attractiveness to knowledge based inward investment.
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