Celtic Norse Cable Branches to Scotland and Iceland

Celtic Norse fibre optic cable between Norway and Ireland will be partnered by Vodafone Iceland to develop a branch into Iceland.

It is also investigating the opportunity to develop a branch into Scotland, initially with the government’s infrastructure body, the Scottish Futures Trust and Host in Scotland, the datacenter umbrella body which it sponsors.

Celtic Norse will also be working with Aquacomms as its operations partner for the venture.

Celtic Norse CEO, Erling Aronsveen, said: “Celtic Norse heads into the Request for Price (RFP) with the confidence that a vendor will be selected to build the system by end the of December 2019 and the final stages of financing will be complete with the significant advantage of having a contract signed for a turn-key build.” In continuation he said: “Celtic Norse will provide a significant advantage to the new developing data centre industry in Norway and provide much needed resilience to the countries international connectivity.”

Vodafone Iceland is a member of a multi-sector partnership building one of the most technologically advanced data centers in Iceland. The construction will be in stages, the first of which is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2019. A key element for the Icelandic data center business is a reliable submarine cable connection between Iceland and Europe.

Heiðar Guðjónsson, CEO of Vodafone Iceland, said: “We are very pleased to be members of the consortium for the Celtic Norse project and we believe this initiative will significantly help us growing the data center business out of Iceland. The natural cooling in the Arctic and 100 % renewable energy, will make data centers here the most environmentally friendly and efficient in the world. Celtic Norse might also add up synergies for an interconnected data center market, opening up for partnership or cooperation across the regions.”

James King, Chairman of Host in Scotland, said: “The digital team at Scottish Futures Trust has been working with stakeholders to build an understanding of how it could improve Scotland’s direct connectivity to Europe and USA. There is growing recognition that a direct connection would greatly benefit Scotland’s economy as well as improving national resilience by increasing the number of international subsea fibre links. “I am therefore extremely pleased that we have developed this opportunity with Celtic Norse to further this ambition and we very much look forward to continuing to work with them to investigate the delivery of this strategic connection.”

“We are delighted to be Landing party in Ireland and providing system NOC services to the consortium. The proposed landing in KIllala, Co. Mayo provides an ideal opportunity for resilient connectivity to Dublin, and beyond towards London, and provides for interconnectivity, via America Europe Connect (AEC-1) cable to New York and beyond. Aquacomms specializes in developing, building and operating Subsea cables; as a neutral, carriers’ carrier this allows us to deliver the best value in submarine cable infrastructure management”, stated Nigel Bayliff – CEO of Aquacomms