Farice, SubCom to Build New Connectivity to Iceland

Plans for a new submarine cable between Europe and Iceland took another step forward this week. The North Atlantic service provider Farice and the fiber optic cable manufacturer SubCom announced yesterday that the contract for the IRIS cable system is now in force.

IRIS will connect southwestern Iceland with Ballyloughane Strand in Galway, Ireland, a distance of 1,700km. It will bring six fiber pairs to market, each expected to deliver 18Tbps of capacity, and is expected to be ready for service by the end of 2022. They didn’t happen to say precisely where it would land on the Icelandic end, but I wonder how far it will be from that volcanic activity we’ve been hearing about — far enough I’m sure, haha.

The new cable will complement the existing FARICE-1 and DANICE systems that Farice has operated for 17 and 12 years already. It will add to the diversity of fiber access to Iceland by taking a more southerly route and connecting to the rest of Europe via Dublin and London. Farice’s ability to offer a third route will enhance the island nation’s attractiveness to the hyperscale community.

SubCom will manufacture the cable itself at its plant up in Newington, New Hampshire. From there it will be loaded onto a cable ship prior to the actual installation operations in the summer of 2022.

 

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Categories: Fiber optic cable · Undersea cables