MDM Announced Two New Trans-Atlantic Cables Linking The US To Ireland: Narwhal1 & Narwhal2

An Irish company, MDM, whose founding members have done a lot of design work for hyperscalers, has announced it is building two Trans-Atlantic cables in addition to its Pisces project that will connect Ireland to Europe. The estimated construction cost is $500 million. The network is a classic dual ring design where the Northern cable lands at Galway and on Long Island. Now there are several Long Island cable landing stations and MDM already operates one in Galway. So MDM may use these existing facilities for its project. In contrast, the Southern cable is expected to land at a new CLS on Ireland's South Coast. On the US side it will land in New Jersey where it will probably use the existing Wall Township CLS.

I have concerns about this project because there is nothing to indicate it is fully funded. In fact, the last carrier financed and led project across the Atlantic was Aquacomms' AEC-1 cable that went live in 2016. EXA recently purchased Aquacomms and all its Atlantic assets for less than $50 million dollars. Since that point every Atlantic project has involved hyperscalers as the leads and most have been solo hyperscaler projects. Hyperscalers are not interested today in carrier partners, much less entrepreneurs or new players. It is faster and more convenient simply to have 100% ownership and control. Since hyperscalers represent probably 70% to 80% of Atlantic digital traffic, it is unlikely that any carrier or carrier consortium can afford to build their own systems as opposed to buying a single fibre pair or some spectrum on a hyperscaler project. Indeed, that is prevailing pattern during the last ten years. EXA and other wholesale providers like Telxius typically buy spectrum or a fiber pair on new system as opposed to sinking huge amounts of capital into a single project. It is less risky and enable them to have capacity onmany different systems. Consequently, they can provide a diversified portfolio of transport services to the clients. It is also worth noting that 100G waves across the Atlantic typically range from $3,800 to $6,500 MRCs on 3 year terms. Contrast that with $20K to $30K per month for a 2Africa 100G from Accra or Abidjan to Lisbon. Atlantic prices are simply too low to justify solo carrier or traditional consortium projects. These low prices reflect lack of hyperscaler demand for wholesale carrier capacity.

Map of the Narwhal 1 And Narwhal 2 Fibre Optic Subsea Cables


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