What Project Kelvin Means for the Coleraine Economy

In the 152 year history of transatlantic cable systems, Project Kelvin provides Northern Ireland with its first ever direct telecommunications connectivity with the North American continent. Ironically those Victorian cable systems linked Canada directly to Ireland and then routed onward to London. In later times the cables connecting Ireland were replaced in favour of landing stations in Cornwall.

Routing cables directly to Cornwall effectively confined Coleraine to the end of the line in regard to low cost high speed and capacity connectivity with major North American and European Markets. Prior to Project Kelvin, communications from the USA to Coleraine were routed from either Long Island or New Jersey through Cornwall to London. From London they would travel north either to Southport and across the Irish Sea to the Northern Ireland coast via the Isle of Man or through Scotland. On reaching Northern Ireland the cables were usually routed through Belfast eventually reaching Coleraine. Pricing for high capacity international communications was also a limiting factor.

Today Project Kelvin provides Coleraine with direct communications to major North American cities and has become an optimal Atlantic telecommunications hub for North American and European high capacity telecommunications. It’s also the fastest connection and Coleraine can now justifiably claim the telecommunications “Blue-Riband” prize for making the fastest Atlantic crossing between the North American and European continents. Kelvin now remarkably connects Coleraine to the very heart of the Financial District in Manhattan and back again, in just over 66 thousandths of a second.

Just as impressive is the capacity of data (up to 40gigabits per second) that can flow in and out of Coleraine from any point on the Hibernia Atlantic Network; more importantly these unrivalled communication services are provided at a lower magnitude of cost than conventional tariffs.

The removal of economic and physical barriers to enter new markets

In simple terms this world leading communications capability, effectively makes Coleraine an attractive ‘Digital Suburb’ of the major Cities in the USA, Canada, the UK and Continental Europe. It has removed many physical (distance) and economic barriers for local organisations to directly provide data intensive operations into the major commercial and educational centres in the world and the network is constantly expanding.

Another key element to consider is that each point of presence (POP’s) on this network is literally an open highly competitive ‘interconnect’ telecommunications market place. This new shift in economic structure effectively enables competitive sourcing of onward carrier networks to reach even further locations that cover the entire globe and to provide local ‘tail’ circuits to specific destination sites. Additionally the continual low pricing of traffic use on the Hibernia Atlantic network has been well assured through the use of a contracted transparent benchmarking mechanism.

What new opportunities can Kelvin provide to Coleraine?

In this Information Age, “information now travels to people across the globe in almost an instant, greatly reducing geographic limitation” and in recent years, the correlation between faster and more affordable broadband speeds and increasing utility of the internet has been well established.

This progressive utility correlation is having a profound impact in the corporate world. Modern communications have fundamentally changed global business structures and enabled constant developments in how modern business is now organised, changing the pattern of our working lives. The good news is that Project Kelvin has thrust Coleraine onto the very spine of the developing digital world’s communications system. Kelvin will inspire local people to creatively embrace the new economic, technological, sociological and academic opportunities it now provides. In addition it now makes Coleraine a highly desirable location for major corporations to locate new remote operations, safe in the knowledge that the power of Kelvin communications will serve to eliminate many of the geographic challenges in efficiently and effectively managing such an outpost.

The Key Advantages of Coleraine for overseas organisations:

• An optimal Atlantic hub for North American >< Pan European communication
• An undiscovered location for international organisations to establish operations
• Outstanding locally educated and talented workforce with strong work ethic
• A highly sought after lifestyle location of outstanding natural beauty and leisure
• Strong local government, commerce support and civic infrastructure. New Kelvin enabled local entrepreneurial opportunities

The following table serves only to possibly prompt new creative thinking about how some of these everyday processes could be delivered in a better way across the world from a base in Coleraine.

COLLABORATING	TRANSACTING	COMMUNICATING	ENTERTAINING	ADMINISTERING
Research & Development	Financial Markets	Social Networking	Music Productions	Membership Registrations
Academic Alliances	Commodity Trading	Industry Networking	Video Productions	Data Back Up & Recovery
Product Test & Development	E-Commerce B2C Selling	Communication Services	Gaming Development	Extensive Databases
Quality & Compliance Management	E-Commerce B2C Selling	E Commerce B2B Market Exchanges	International Translation Services	Opinion Research Surveys
Quality & Compliance Management	E-Commerce B2C Selling	E Commerce B2B Market Exchanges	International Translation Services	Opinion Research Surveys
Architectural / Development	Internet reservations	Direct Sales & Marketing	On-Line Competitions	Electronic Transactions
Project Design & Planning	Payment Systems	Educational Services	Literature Productions	Information Updates
Project Management	Back Office Settlements	Unused Resources	Instructional Productions	Fraud Prevention
Supply Chain Management	Commercial Downloads	Advisory Services	Views & Ideas Exchanges	Security Systems