New Beaufort Subsea Fibre Cable Between Ireland and UK Makes Progress

Plans by Amazon (AWS) and Vodafone to deploy a new high‑capacity subsea fibre optic cable link between Ireland and the United Kingdom (Wales), as part of the ‘Beaufort Cable’ system, appear to be making progress, with new planning applications helping to confirm the expected landing sites.

The Beaufort Cable System is essentially envisaged as being a replacement for the ESAT‑1 cable (installed in 1999 by ESAT Telecom and later acquired by BT), which reached the end of its operational lifespan in 2024. The new cable will carry up to 96 fibre pairs within a 33 mm‑diameter unit and is targeted to be buried 1.5 metres beneath the seabed for protection.

According to a new planning application submitted to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park (Subtel Forum), Apollo Submarine Cable Systems (a subsidiary of Vodafone) are planning to bring the cable ashore at the village of Newgale in Wales (linking via a site at the Newsurf Shop Car Park, Sands Café Car Park and Duke of Edinburgh Inn). The side in Ireland will connect at a site in Kilmore Quay, Wexford.

At present we still don’t know the final timescale for deployment (pending planning approvals) or the full technical specs for the cable itself, although the deployment phase appears to be inching ever closer. The final cable is also expected to adopt a multi-branch architecture, which includes an additional subsea connection to Bude (Cornwall) in England.

This is only the latest in a string of recent subsea cable announcements, including the new AUÐUR cable between the UK and Iceland (here), as well as the IOEMA Fibre project that will connect the UK with Northern Europe (here). Not to mention others, like 2Africa (here) or the VERENA cable between the UK and Denmark (here). Several other subsea links have also been proposed, such as a new one to link with Shetland (here) and several by Microsoft.