Cinia reports more subsea cable ‘disturbance’

Submarine telecommunications cable C-Lion-1, between Finland and Germany, is a 1,173km cable that was commissioned in 2016 to connect central European telecommunications networks to Finland and other Nordic countries.

Without giving further details, Cinia last week said ‘some disturbance has been detected’ on the cable, and the matter had been reported to the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.

“However, the disturbance does not affect the functionality of telecommunication connections running in the cable and the data traffic continues flowing normally,” it said. “The exact cause of the disturbance is still under investigation.”

Also last week, the EU drew up a raft of measures aimed at protecting subsea cable infrastructure, with prevention, detection, response and deterrence the key targets.

Pan-Arctic cable system

Protection will be more and more important with new agreements being signed all the time to connect nations via subsea cable.

European firms Cinia Oy, NORDUnet, Tusass, the Dutch Subsea Cable Coalition, GlobalConnect and Tampnet recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to ‘recognise the strategic value of establishing a Pan-Arctic Cable System that will contribute to the global digital connectivity infrastructure’.

The MoU aims to create new routes between Europe and Asia via the Arctic and North America, strengthening internet security and digital networks.

The parties have said the full system should be in place by the early 2030s, with some parts going ahead before then.