A fibre-optic cable that could become vital for Ireland's telecommunications ambitions has reached the country from North America during the weekend and has already been hailed as a historic milestone.
The 24,000 km cable linking forms part of Project Kelvin, a £25 million endeavour carried out by US company Hibernia Atlantic and partly funded by the European Union Development Fund and the Irish Government.
Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster told the BBC that "The new cable will connect Northern Ireland, for the first time, directly to North America and greatly improve connectivity with Europe [and] when combined with the new terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure, currently under construction across Northern Ireland, it will put us at the heart of the global economy".
The cable will connect Belfast, Derry, Coleraine and Armagh in the North and Letterkenny, Monaghan, Castleblaney, Dundalk, and Drogheda in the Republic as well as Southport in the UK. The cable network will be operational in March 2010 and will introduce faster and cheaper communications for businesses and consumers alike.
The Communications Minister Eaermon Ryan is adamant that Project Kelvin will be instrumental in attracting investment and enhancing Ireland's international status as a technology hub.
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Our Comments
Ireland has been hit by the full force of the recession and its economy could do with some good news like this one. The cable will only come into operation next year when, hopefully, the first green shoots will have appeared in Belfast and the rest of Ireland.
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