Hetzner Online Buys into Germany-Finland Subsea Link

German web hosting company and data center operator, Hetzner Online, is investing in a 1,100 km long deep sea cable from Rostock to the capital of Finland, Helsinki.

The fiber-optic link is expected to be put into operation in the spring of 2016. Preparations for cable system implementation have started with routing and marine surveys.

The project, named Sea Lion, will see Alcatel-Lucent and Cinia Group, previously Corenet, the Finnish Government-owned venture, deploy the undersea cable.

Hetzner Online has signed a contract with Finnish connectivity provider Cinia Group Ltd. for the acquisition of an undersea cable that will provide the first direct cable link between mainland Europe and the Nordic region.

Hetzner Online will be using a part of the fiber-optic cable for fast and secure connectivity from its present data centers to Scandinavian countries in future, thereby taking greater control over the quality of its data transmission.

The whole system will provide a total transmission capacity of 15 terabits per second and will play a key role in providing reliable and secure broadband connections for cloud and data center applications.

Chief Executive Officer of Hetzner Online AG, Martin Hetzner, commented: “The new sea cable provides Hetzner Online with a broadband and latency optimised connection between a future data center location in the Nordic region and the Central European Internet infrastructure in Frankfurt.”