(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Irish telecommunications and web hosting company Eircom (www.eircom.net) and network carrier Hibernia Atlantic (www.hiberniaatlantic.com) announced on Monday that the companies had partnered to link eircom’s Clonshaugh, Ireland data center to the US and Canada via Hibernia Atlantic’s trans-Atlantic submarine fiber optic cable.
The objective of the deal, according to the companies, is to give North American companies operating in Ireland more control over costs by making it possible to connect to Ireland without having to navigate through the UK or Europe.
“While other data centres have carrier diversity, eircom’s data centre is the only Irish data centre to be physically located on the same site as Hibernia’s cable landing station in Dublin,” says the press release.
The announcement portrays the deal as being a boon to North American companies in Ireland, on the one hand, but it also describes the project as contributing to the image of Ireland as a more “connected” country, attracting foreign investment and encouraging growth.
“This is a significant announcement for eircom as it means that our data center now sits on the fastest connectivity line to the US and Canada,” says eircom’s business solutions director Andy O’Kelly, quoted in the press release. “The ability to move data at the speed of light is crucial in today’s knowledge economy. Data center users are measuring their data transfer times in terms of milliseconds across the Atlantic and into major European cities from Dublin. The low latency network of Hibernia Atlantic will allow our clients to have confidence in Dublin as a strategic data centre location. The combination of the energy efficiency of the eircom data centre and high availability of fiber optic networks makes it the location of choice for major online brands and cloud computing service providers.”
According to Hibernia Atlantic, Project Kelvin is the name of its submarine and terrestrial cable deployment connecting Ireland to North America with the intent of providing local and global commerce between Ireland and the rest of the world.
A map of the Project Kelvin cable is available at the Hibernia Atlantic website.
