1. Direct International Connectivity Project Kelvin
The North West Region includes the international border between the UK and Ireland and is on the western periphery of Europe. The majority of data traffic in both jurisdictions is routed through London – all data traffic goes east to London before it can go west
This causes a wide range of problems including:
Latency (Speed) , for example from Londonderry to New York 150milliseconds. This is too slow for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). This is mainly caused by the need to route traffic through London and the lack of telecoms infrastructure across the border.
Cost:
Data transfer between towns is at international rates even if only a few kilometers apart.- for example Letterkenny and Londonderry
The cost includes routing traffic through London. Distance related charging means international telecoms costs vary throughout the region, increasing in the more rural areas.
Resilience: The Donegal area in particular had a poor record for reliability mainly due to the single cable link to the main networks in the rest of Ireland.
Competition: dominated by the former state owned carriers, BT (UK and Eircom (Ireland)
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2. Connecting to the world – before
This drawing illustrates the problem – all the submarine infrastructure is on the east coast and routes traffic through to London.
Our solution - stop routing international traffic through London and bring international connectivity directly into the North West.
How:
By creating a spur from the existing Hibernia North cable (North America to England)
Building a fibre optic cross border network with 13 access points.
Making it a condition of the contract that the same services are available at the same price on both sides of the border
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3. Landing the submarine cable
Finding a suitable landing point on the north coast was a challenge. It is an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty , Special Scientific Interest and includes Giants Causeway, a World Heritage site.
An environmental impact assessment was carried out and the landing point carefully chosen. In order to minimise disruption to beach, a specialist drilling company was brought in to install a 600m pipe underneath the beach and out to sea. The submarine cable was subsequently pulled through the pipe leaving the beach untouched.
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4. Direct connectivity
The submarine cable has now been connected to a new fibre optic network linking locations on both sides of the border. Traffic can be routed between any of the linked locations and directly to North America or indirectly to Amsterdam – no more need to route through London
As a result international connectivity to both North America and Europe is twice as fast as before.
Connectivity between towns on both sides of the border is extremely fast – Letterkenny to Londonderry less than half a millisecond.
There is ample backhaul – 1.8 Terabits
The cost is the same on both sides of the border and traffic and competitive with costs in any major European city.
THE BORDER HAS NO IMPACT ON LATENCY, CAPACITY, COST OR RESILIENCE
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5. The first customer
North West Electronics (NWE) is a micro SME based in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
The company provides broadband through wireless technology to over 7,000 small businesses and homes in the rural areas
As a result of this project NWE has already:
Increased the capacity available to its rural customers by 100% at no extra cost.
Set up the North of Ireland Internet Neutral Exchange in Londonderry (the first of its kind in the region) with peering pints on both sides of the border
So what have we achieved?
We have changed the North West region from being on the edge of the telecoms networks and far from the main telecommunications centers into a major telecommunications hub linking Europe and North America.
Thank you.
04/05/2019