A major fibre-optic system between New York and Mayo has been mooted for years but the initial $300 million (€279 million) investment is finally set to proceed.
Contracts are now in force to fund the construction of the cable and its installation beneath the Atlantic. The system should be up and running in the early part of 2016, providing scope for a swathe of new high-tech investments along the western seaboard via Killala, Co Mayo. The ultimate aim, however, is to link the cable into European data networks.
If Apple’s data centre initiative at Athenry, Co Galway, demonstrates the western region’s potential to attract “big data” from large American multinationals, the Aqua Comms project is cast to provide the infrastructural backbone required to harness it.
This is key, all the more so when the drive to boost regional investment is crucial for the consolidation of the nascent recovery.
Details on the technical scale of the endeavour remain sketchy, although it is said to treble cable capacity between Ireland and US.
While the system would be big enough to carry one-third of the world’s regular voice phone traffic at any one time, the attraction lies in its power to transmit electronic data.
It would be strong enough for 200,000 simultaneous online movie downloads, 20 million 4G phone calls in the very same moment and more. Other capacity is measured in trillions. This is a big step into the fast lane.
In the era of cloud computing and the data centre, the capacity to carry exceedingly large volumes of data is critical. Given Dublin’s position as a global hub for tech investment, the project provides leeway to further expand the sector’s reach into rural parts of the State.
After a slow start, this project now appears to be on its way. In the past couple of weeks, Mayo County Council granted conditional approval for a single-storey cable landing station near Killala business park. More significantly still, Nomura Bank has agreed to fund the development.
While all of that is in addition to obvious tax advantages for multinationals in Ireland, it also re-emphasises the importance of reinforcing the State’s electricity network.
That has proved contentious. Data capacity is but one part of the equation.
