2024-04-06 07:49:36
Last year, Baltic Sea gas and telecommunications cables were damaged, with a possible suspect being a Chinese ship.
Red Sea data cables were cut last month after Yemen’s government warned of attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. More than 90 percent all data traffic from Europe and Asia flows through the Red Sea.
Far North fiber optic cable (eng. Far North Fiber) project aims to offer a safer route, bypassing such risky points as the Red Sea.
More than 90 percent all traffic between Europe and Asia flows through cables laid through this trade corridor, which has seen an uptick in violence since October. The problem when important data depends on only one path is obvious.
“Obviously, it’s a certain concentration of multiple cables – which means there’s a risk of bottlenecks in certain areas,” says Tanelis Vuorinen, executive vice president of Cinia, a Finland-based company that develops the innovative submarine cable.
According to him, “to meet the growing demand, there is increasing pressure to seek route diversity.”
The Far North fiber optic project aims to offer just that. The 14,500 km long cable will connect Europe directly to Japan via the Northwest Passage in the Arctic, with terminals in Japan, the United States of America (Alaska), Canada, Norway, Finland and Ireland.
Just a few years ago, this would have been unthinkable – navigation was impossible due to the thick layer of multi-year ice cover. But climate change is causing the Arctic to warm at an alarming rate, nearly four times faster than the rest of the world. Sea ice is shrinking by almost 13 percent every decade.
Ika Icard, chief strategy officer of Far North Digital, another company working on the project, says that summer warming now allows ships to lay the cable, while winter frost limits disruption.
“We’ve gotten to such a good point where it’s now available and allows us to run the cable safely,” says the specialist. At the same time, for most of the year, the ice cover will protect the cable from human threats, from ship anchors to sabotage attempts.
Once the sea research is complete, Nokia’s parent company, Alcatel Submarine Networks, will start manufacturing the parts and start installing the cable by 2027, when it is scheduled to go into service.
The European Union is the sponsor of this project, having allocated about 23 million. EUR under CEF Digital, the main financial instrument supporting connectivity across the bloc. The European Commission recently urged EU governments to better protect their submarine networks and wants new cable projects to fill strategic gaps.
Far North Digital co-founder Ethan Berkowitz wants more governments to join the project. “We expect more active support from the US and Canada,” he says, citing the global geopolitical situation as a compelling reason for them to act.
“No one would want to cut a cable under the ice, it’s really hard to do,” he says.
A blessing and a curse
While the shorter route the cable takes will reduce signal delay – meaning faster data transfer – working in the Arctic can be more difficult and expensive.
“Because of the ice that helps protect the cable, in the unlikely event that it is damaged, it is more difficult to repair it,” explains Icard. This means that, depending on the time of year, repairs can take weeks or even months.
The process of floating ice moving to shallower areas and scouring the seabed can also pose a threat. This is how broadband went out in Alaska last summer, when chunks of Arctic ice severed an underwater fiber optic line.
“Our system is designed so that when a failure occurs, we can redirect traffic,” says Berkowitz.
1 billion The completion of the project, which costs EUR, significantly exceeds the cost of other fiber optic routes.
The cable across the Atlantic Ocean costs about 250 million. euros, according to Alan Mauldin, director of research at TeleGeography, a consulting company based in Washington. It costs about 320 million to lay a cable in the Pacific Ocean. euros.
“Technically it is possible to do it, but the question is commercial. Just because the cable has a unique route compared to other systems, you can’t charge a higher fee for it,” A. Mauldin observes.
Vuorinen says there is already “a lot of interest” from potential customers, such as Big Tech, which wants to diversify intercontinental communications with the defense and security community, which could use a safer route. “The goal is to have a commercially viable project,” says a Cinia representative.
If the project goes smoothly, it could become a model for others who want to take advantage of the opportunities offered by increasingly open Arctic waters. Scientists recently warned that the Arctic Ocean could soon see its first ice-free days.
Adapted from Politico.
2024-04-06 07:49:36