The 1,172km cable is designed to offer the shortest and fastest route between central Europe and data centre locations across Northern Europe, as well as Eastern Europe and Asia.
“The new direct subsea data connection supports the development of the new European data centre concept and will provide a major business opportunity for companies both in Finland and Europe,” said Ari-Jussi Knaapila, CEO at Cinia Group.
Designed for high capacity, low-latency and cyber security, the C-Lion1 is ideally located in a region that has cool climate conditions, a cost-efficient energy supply and a strategic position between the East and the West.
In December 2015 Hetzner Online, a customer and co-investor in the C-Lion1, announced plans to launch a data centre park in Finland with work scheduled to begin in the coming months.
“The direct link between mainland Europe and Finland lays the foundation for our new data centre park near Helsinki,” said Martin Hetzner, founder and CEO of Hetzner Online.
“The new submarine cable provides a latency-optimised broadband connection between the Northern region and the Central European internet infrastructure in Frankfurt. Hetzner Online will use a portion of the fibre-optic cable for a secure and fast connection from its current data centres to the Nordic countries, and so assumes more control over the quality of data transmission.”
Work began on the C-Lion 1 cable in October 2015 and it is expected to go live during Spring 2016, following a commissioning and acceptance process.
