New Subsea Fibre Cable Linking to Norway Lands in the UK

Good news. The NO-UK cable project, which is being managed by consultancy firm SubSea Networks, has confirmed that a new subsea fibre optic cable between Norway and the UK, with capacity for data speeds of up to 216Tbps (Terabits), has finally arrived on this side of the sea by landing at Seaton Sluice beach near Newcastle.

After several years of preparation, the marine installation programme for the new 670km long and 8 fibre repeater-based open cable system finally got underway in June 2021 at a site in Stavanger (Norway). Since then, it’s been slowly making its way across the North Sea toward the UK and will ultimately become a part of a larger European fibre network established by Altibox Carrier, Euroconnect-1.

The marine installation itself is being performed by the Global Marine cable ship the Normand Clipper, while the repeaters have been manufactured by STI (the system design is Xtera’s) and cable is provided by NSW. The 760km cable, which has now been landed on both sides, will connect the Stellium Data Centre in Newcastle (England), with the Green Mountain Data Centre in Rennesøy, Stavanger (Norway).

Assuming all goes well, and there’s no reason to think it shouldn’t continue to do so, then the cable itself is expected to go live before the end of this year. The cable will then be able to offer Dark Fibre or capacity backhaul routes to any major PoP in the Nordics or UK.

The project reflects a consortium comprising Altibox Carrier as the operator, Lyse, Haugaland Kraft, BKK, Ryfylke IKS, Green Mountain and the Hatteland Group.