Cinia, MegaFon enter Arctic telecom cable agreement

A memorandum of understanding has been signed by Cinia and MegaFon to prepare the build of a submarine telecommunications cable across the Arctic Sea.

This international project aims to create a completely new route to connect continents and also to fulfil connectivity requirements of the Arctic region.

The Cinia alliance in this phase consists of Japanese and Nordic partners and an international investment bank. The main objective of the MoU is to establish the Development Company by Q4/2019.

The global economy increasingly depends on international networks and logistics systems. The Arctic cable will increase the redundancy of the global networks significantly by providing a totally new route.

It will also offer the lowest-latency sea route between Europe and northern Asia thanks to the shortest geographical route and the most sophisticated technology.

“The Arctic cable will contribute to the socioeconomic development of the Arctic areas. The cable is an environmentally sustainable way to boost global, regional and local economy. At the same time, the cable will connect three continents, covering approximately 85% of the world’s population,” said Ari-Jussi Knaapila, CEO of Cinia.

Today the global submarine cable networks provide over 99% of international telecommunications. The new 10,000 km of the Arctic route will offer an optimal combination of low latency, physical diversity and high network availability. Currently, the global network backbone is lacking an optical submarine cable that connects Europe, coastal regions of Russia, Japan and North America.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/katatonia

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