Marine / Faroese Telecom visited fishing ports after cable damage
THE OWNER of the subsea cable which developed a fault last year off Shetland causing a telecommunications blackout in the isles says it visited some Scottish fishing ports and has had other contact with the industry since the incident last year.
A fishing trawler was pinpointed as the reason why the Shefa-2 cable, which runs between Shetland and Orkney, was damaged in October – temporarily causing significant disruption to phone and broadband in the isles.
It incidentally happened shortly after another fault was discovered on a similar telecoms cable running between Shetland and Faroe.
The Shefa-2 network is owned by Faroese Telecom.
Faroese Telecom managing director Páll Højgaard Vesturbú said since the incident the company has held visits to the some of the ports “that we believe have been most relevant”. This did not involve any ports in Shetland.
“We have visited the ports of Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Buckie and Macduff,” Vesturbú told Shetland News.
“We have also had other contact with the industry both inside and outside the UK.”
He said Faroese Telecom also uses the company Ultramap to monitor some parts the subsea link, “and to contact ships if they appear to be fishing too close to the cable”.
Since the incident off Shetland this service has now been expanded to more areas of the cable.
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