Rethinking Norwegian connectivity: Why subsea is the key to route diversity

Finding diverse backhaul routes in Norway is getting harder. Tampnet has pioneered a new subsea approach to deliver a high-capacity, fully-diverse route connecting 11+ locations. 

Norway has become a sought-after location for sustainability-minded data business. Its 100% renewable and low-cost energy sources have attached many well-known hyperscalers, data center operators, content providers, and ISPs. As Datacentre Magazine quoted, "With Google, Skanska and Green Mountain building and running facilities in Norway, the country stands as a leader in sustainable and efficient data centers." 

Those companies require reliable, high-capacity connectivity - a need that Tampnet Carrier has been servicing for over a decade with our network of wholly-owned subsea infrastructure and the best third-party terrestrial routes. 

But the growth of Norway's data industry has also created some issues. Soaring demand for capacity has led to increased congestion and latency on the most popular terrestrial routes, leaving us and our customers in need of new options for route diversity. 

This blog sets out how we tackled the challenge - and why an unorthodox solution proved to be the right one for the Norwegian market. 

Read the full whitepaper here. 

Difficult terrain for terrestrial fiber build-outs

If you know Norway, you'll appreciate the challenges in building and maintaining new cross-country fiber routes. Its famous mountains and fjords are breathtaking to experience, but they present significant physical obstacles. Coupled with that, the often-harsh weather conditions make thousands of kilometres of cable tough to maintain. 

Many cable operators in Norway consequently piggyback on existing infrastructure, like power lines and railways. But while this makes installation easier, reliance on third-party infrastructure can also make access a challenge for maintenance, upgrades and repairs. That can take its toll on network downtime, and the restricted choice of routes also limits the scope of diversity. 

Thinking differently about Norwegian connectivity 

When we started to explore possible new routes, these limitations prompted us to think differently about how to approach the challenge. 

The answer came from our work with the oil and gas industry. Tampnet owns and operates the world's largest and most diverse offshore high-capacity communications network, delivering always-on connectivity to platforms and vessels in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). 

The level of physical interference on our subsea assets was compellingly low compared to terrestrial routes. With customers demanding route diversity, 100% uptime and low latency and with Norway's key data hubs being located around the coast, a subsea system could be the way forward. 

A unique subsea route along the coast of Norway

Once we started to look at subsea, a unique opportunity presented itself. Just off the coast of southern Norway lies a relatively deep trench offering a high degree of protection from fishing activity, anchors and malicious interference. The trench also lies within the 12 nm of national waters monitored by the Norwegian Coast Guard, providing an added layer of protection. 

Even better, the natural characteristics of the trench meant we would be able to bury all 700+ km of the cable, providing added protection against physical disturbance. 

Essentially, this near-shore trench would allow us to combine key benefits of subsea, like low risk of disturbance and high protection from the weather, with key benefits of terrestrial, like short distance between points of presence (PoPs). 

It also meant we could use a festoon topology to connect 11+ key hubs along the route - with all electronics hosted on land, leaving the cable as low-maintenance passive fiber. 

NORFEST: Festoon topology connecting 11+ key data hubs in Norway and Sweden

Crucially, using this natural deep-water trench meant we could offer customers a fully diverse, future-proofed route with no reliance on third-party host infrastructure. We even identified a unique north-south route intro central Oslo, avoiding the east-west routes used by existing fiber infrastructure serving the Oslo metro area. 

A unique north-south route into the Oslo metro area

A raft of innovations to maximise capacity and uptime

Rolling out a brand new system gave us a fantastic opportunity to leverage new technologies to maximise capacity and uptime. 

A key decision was to utilise 48 fiber pairs, ensuring scalability to meet future capacity demand. On land, we could also leverage next-generation optical transponders from Ciena to maximise wavelength capacity and throughput while optimising space and lowering power draw. 

We could also draw on Tampnet innovations in physical threat detection, to maximise uptime and lower mean time to repair (MTTR). Our state of polarisation fiber-sensing technology, for example, can detect vibrations or impacts along the fiberpath, and trigger an alert. 

Prioritizing sustainability in system buildout 

High demand for capacity meant the business case for the new system, dubbed NORFEST (for NORdic FESToon), was swiftly signed off by Tampnet investors, and buildout began in 2023. 

It was important to us that we made the build, and the system, as sustainable as possible in terms of environmental impact. All CLS huts along the route are installed with solar panels, for example, and we used a horizontal directional drilling (HDD) technique to bring the cable ashore, preserving the natural environment at landfall sites. 

The result: A new, high-resilience backhaul option for Norwegian connectivity 

The entire system was rolled out in under 11 months, bringing a brand-new, high-fiber-count backhaul connectivity route to the Norwegian market. Customers already live on the system benefit from a 100% diverse route, with high resilience, low MTTR, and life-of-system access to install, maintain and upgrade their choice of electronic. 

As the prime of our own system, Tampnet is as invested in the performance of NORFEST as our customers. We partner with our customers to ensure we're delivering the uptime, reliability and responsiveness required by today's most demanding data business - from hyperscalers and content delivery networks to broadcasters, IPSs and communications service providers. 

If you'd like to learn more about NORFEST, download our white paper or reach out to carrier_sales@tampnet.com