The Scotland-Northern Ireland 3 submarine cable is a high-speed telecommunications cable that connects Scotland and Northern Ireland. The cable runs for approximately 250 kilometers along the seabed of the North Channel, with landing points in Portpatrick, Scotland and Larne, Northern Ireland.
The cable was laid in 2018 by a joint venture between three major telecommunications companies: Aqua Comms, Cable & Wireless, and GTT Communications. It is the third cable to connect Scotland and Northern Ireland, with the first two cables having been laid in 1995 and 2004 respectively.
The Scotland-Northern Ireland 3 submarine cable has a capacity of 40 terabits per second, which makes it one of the fastest and most advanced submarine cables in the world. It is designed to support data-intensive applications such as cloud computing, video streaming, and online gaming, and to provide reliable and secure connectivity between Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The cable is expected to play a crucial role in the economic development of both Scotland and Northern Ireland, as it will help to connect businesses and communities across the two regions. It will also provide a backup route for other subsea cables that connect the UK to North America and Europe, helping to ensure that communications are not disrupted in the event of a cable break or other outage.