Security fears in the wake of the September 11th, 2001, attack in the US are generating business for a 12,200 kilometre transatlantic sub-sea cable linking Ireland to the US.
The submarine cable owned by Hibernia Atlantic was laid at a cost of over €900 million, as an alternative to the existing cable lane between Cornwall in Britain and the US. The single British route, on which Irish companies were also dependent, is now deemed to be a "risk" by many institutions in the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks, according to Mr Mike Higgins, sales and marketing director of Hibernia Atlantic.
A 140-metre vessel, the Wave Sentinel, is in Dublin Port this week to report on maintenance work on the fragile cable which extends across the Irish Sea from Liverpool and takes in the Irish coast on the Atlantic circuit. The ship, owned by British company Global Marine Systems Ltd, is a dedicated cable-laying and maintenance vessel.
The ship has already identified several faults on the Irish Sea section, and Capt Chris Sturgeon, its master, says that the vessel will return to finish work in the Irish Sea later this week. It has been commissioned to carry out one repair in the Atlantic in several weeks' time. The crew of 54 use a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and cable burial "ploughs" for subsea work, while actual repairs to the cable are carried out on board.
The ship can carry approximately 2,600 tonnes of cable at any one time, and its captain says that the Atlantic is one of the harshest environments for such work, with depths of up to 6,000 metres. The vessel is a far cry from the Great Eastern, the 1,900-ton ship which laid the first successful telegraph cable across the Atlantic from Valentia island to the US. It was commanded by Capt Robert Halpin of Wicklow, one of the finest mariners of the 19th century.
The fibre optic transatlantic cable was originally laid by 360 Networks, and was acquired by Columbia Ventures Corporation - parent company of Hibernia Atlantic, based in Dublin. Hibernia Atlantic says that the system can offer enormous capacity of up to 160 "gigabits" per second on each path. This is equivalent to handling two and a half million simultaneous phone calls, while also broadcasting 13,0000 individual high quality films.
