MAYO AND THE west are in for some interesting times with the news that a new high-speed fibre-optic cable between Ireland and the US is to be landed at Killala, near Ballina.
The cable will treble data connectivity speeds across the Atlantic when it goes live. It’s the first such cable laid in over a decade, and the first to ever make direct landfall on Ireland’s west coast.
Not surprisingly, locals are pretty happy with how things have developed.
Chairman of Mayo Council Damien Ryan says the news will ‘significantly increase’ the attractiveness of Mayo as a place in which to both work and invest, while the Taoiseach (in whose constituency the cable will land) described the venture as “a massive vote of confidence in the Irish economy”.
This will offer enormous opportunities for the West and for the Island as a whole.
Head of Mayo Council’s enterprise unit Joanne Grehan says the cable will put Mayo in a ‘very strategic position’ as a landfall location for a global asset.
“We’ll be driving the areas close to the cable’s landfall as a centre for the data processing, data storage and related industries,” she said.
Cloud computing and other Internet related industries are among the fastest growing in the world but require high powered, reliable global connectivity at a point usually close to the source.
Permission for a landing station for the cable was granted some time ago, but the €117 million in funding necessary to finalise the project has only just been approved for Dublin-based Aqua Comms (the firm behind the project) by global lender Nomura International.
The €280 million endeavour, due to begin construction this summer for a launch date sometime next year, will mean a vastly improved infrastructure for the likes of cloud computing businesses and data centres (such as the €850 million one Apple are set to build in Athenry, Co. Galway).
The cable will make landfall across the Atlantic Ocean at Shirley, New York.
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