SHEFA-2

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SHEFA-2 is an undersea communication cable linking the Faroe Islands to mainland Scotland via the Shetland Islands. It is named after the route on which it is being deployed (SHEtland-FAroes) and succeeds an earlier cable called SHEFA-1 on the same route.

SHEFA-2 runs from Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands to Maywick in Shetland, then from Sandwick in Shetland onwards to Ayre of Caira in Orkney, and from Manse Bay in Orkney to Banff in Scotland. Establishing the SHEFA-2 cable took less than two years, from the planning of the project in June 2006 until March 2008, when the cable will be ready for use.

SHEFA-1 was deployed from 1971 to 1994, when CANTAT-3 (the fibre-optical submarine cable between Canada and Europe, with branches to both Iceland and the Faroe Islands), was established. It was a coaxial cable with 120 channels, carrying 120 telephone conversations at a time.

SHEFA-2 is a fibre-optic submarine cable and the capacity with today’s technology is 57x10 gigabits per second. The total length of the cable is around 1000 km. SHEFA-2 includes the world’s longest purely passive optical fibre cable link (390km), entirely without amplifiers. With no submarine repeaters and no power feeds, repair and maintenance of the submarine cable is minimized. At the same time, the solution is future proof, as the end-point technology is the only item in need of change to increase the capacity.