Subsea cable repair completed
Digital infrastructure company Cinia, the firm that installed a submarine cable that was damaged and investigated by the Swedish authorities in recent days, has fully repaired and restored the cable, it says.
The direct submarine cable connection under the Baltic Sea between Finland and Germany was damaged on November 18 in the Swedish EEZ, east of Öland, along with another cable that runs between Sweden and Lithuania.
The damage has been investigated by the Swedish and Finnish authorities, who suspect sabotage, officials said.
When the damage was reported, repair vessel Cable Vigilance set sail from Calais, France to begin repairs on the C-Lion1 telecommunications cable connecting Germany with Finland. It has a total length of 1,173 kilometres.
Cinia said that ‘specialised equipment’ had to be brought in from outside the Baltic Sea area, but did not give futher details to Maritime Journal at the time of writing.
“As part of ensuring business continuity in such exceptional situations, there are well-planned and rehearsed processes and procedures in place,” Ari-Jussi Knaapila, CEO of Cinia, was quoted as saying. “The mobilization of the response team was rapid, and the connectivity could be restored slightly faster than expected. The repair measures were accelerated by the smooth and efficient cooperation with the authorities.
“This incident highlights that the redundancy of Finland’s data networks is well built for current needs. However, the future needs are growing, so building new alternative connections is critical from a national perspective.”
The cause of the damage to both cables remains under investigation.
