BT Western Isles subsea cables

BT prepares to install high speed broadband cables 30/3/14

BT has applied for a marine licence to install subsea telcom cables linking the Western Isles and Skye onto a mainland high-speed fibre broadband network.

The upgrade is part of a wider £146 million scheme led by HIE which aims to connect around 84% of Highlands and Islands homes and businesses onto fibre broadband by the end of 2016.

Overall, some 20 cables will be buried underwater between Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles at a cost of nearly £27 million.

The longest cable will run for nearly 49 miles under the Minch from Ullapool to Branahuie Bay, Point, on Lewis

There will be a 35 mile link between Carnan on South Uist and Dunvegan, Skye.

Lochmaddy and Leverburgh will be linked by a connection under the Sound of Harris.

Marine cabling will be installed from Ludag to Balla, Eriskay and then under the Sound of Barra from Coilleag, Eriskay to Northbay on Barra.

Orange Marine’s cable ship René Descartes has been chartered to lay the submarine cables this summer. Orange Marine is part of the Orange mobile phone company, formerly France Télécom

Chelmsford-based Global Marine Systems was commissioned to conduct detailed marine route surveys and supply the cables; Orange Marine, is contracted to lay around 400 kilometres of subsea cables, while Hampshire-based A-2-Sea Solutions will work onshore connecting the cables to BT’s terrestrial network.

The project is the biggest subsea engineering project BT has undertaken in UK territorial waters and the first ever with so many seabed crossings.

The company will build more than 800km of new land fibre backbone to complement its existing fibre network, and install hundreds more kilometres of fibre access cable to hundreds of new street cabinets.