Aqua Comms: Delivering Secure, Resilient Subsea Connectivity

In the digital world, subsea fiber-optic cable networks provide critical infrastructure for reliable capacity solutions to customers. Established in 2014, Aqua Comms is a dependable name in the subsea cabling field. The company excels in building and operating submarine cable systems. From planning, implementation, to supply of fiber pairs, spectrum, and capacity services, Aqua comms is known for delivering quality to the global media, content and carrier markets.

Nigel Bayliff has led Aqua Comms as its CEO since 2016. His leadership has added great value to the ongoing innovation at the Dublin company. We got to know more about the developments at Aqua Comms in a recent interview with the executive.

What was the vision behind Aqua Comms when it started out? Where does the company stand in the market now?

Aqua Comms’ vision was and remains to build, acquire or otherwise combine subsea fiber-optic cable networks to provide capacity networking solutions to customers that require exceptional performance and reliability. Aqua Comms is positioned today as the Trans-Atlantic expert that specializes in subsea networks in the North Atlantic market. We have three new systems going live in the coming months to complete the North Atlantic Loop with plans for future subsea networks. We are also seen as a reliable partner with a future-proofed network, run by a highly experienced team driven by efficient processes.

What is the primary difference between Aqua Comms and other companies in the space?

• The primary differences between Aqua Comms and other similar companies are:

1. We are a true carriers’ carrier; we never compete with our customers who range from global content networks to wholesale carriers to cloud based networks and global media organizations.
2. We operate an outsource structure to deliver the most cost-efficient operating model, managed by a specialist and experienced management team.

What are your Capacity services? What are the upsides of using these?

Aqua Comms offers full and fractional fiber pairs, managed spectrum and wavelength services. These are all products to support our offering of Infrastructure-as-a-Service – delivering core transport-layer services to suit the customers’ demand profile between the key major international data hubs including New York, London and Dublin.

How can Fibre Pair solutions be utilized at its maximum potential?

Fibre Pair solutions are typically for the large content players looking to sweat the asset to deliver as much data through a single Fibre Pair as possible. This involves close alignment with the network vendors to constantly review performance across specific network segments with a view to optimizing throughput. Aqua Comms itself has partnered with Ciena for its AEC-1 services and is deploying Ciena’s latest technology to deliver 20 Tbps over a single Fibre Pair between city POPs in New York to city POPs in London.

Tell us about FOCUS and your Professional Services offering

FOCUS refers primarily to Aqua Comms’ positioning to deliver best-in-class transport-layer services on subsea fiber-optic cables. These services are at the core infrastructure layer that underpin today’s global content, carrier and cloud networks. This FOCUS makes us unique in the market. It also supports our outsource Professional Services model that we have built through the development of the 3 new cables we are bringing on this year. With the maturity of our unique operating procedures, we have expanded our product offering to provide Professional Services that will range from acting as an operations partner to providing provisioning and order management services right through to sales and marketing support. Our extensive expertise across all these areas can deliver operational and financial efficiencies to our customers and our new FOCUS portal will give customers visibility of network availability, service performance stats, sales management tools through integration with Salesforce and access to 24x7 support through iNOC. This supports our FOCUS model – Fibre Optic Cables Under the Sea: it’s all we do.

Brief us about your Network.

AquaComms is the owner and operator of America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1) and CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) interconnecting core data hubs of New York City, Dublin and London. Aqua Comms is currently building America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2), its share of the Havfrue cable from New Jersey to Ireland and Denmark, CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2), a second Irish Sea cable and North Sea Connect (NSC) connecting the UK and Denmark to develop a resilient dual-path network across the Atlantic between North America and Europe, creating the North Atlantic Loop. Aqua Comms operates strictly as a carriers’ carrier and our FOCUS therefore is on providing high bandwidth, transport-layer subsea services and only in the wholesale market.

Meet the Leader

Nigel Bayliff, CEO

A chartered engineer and a fellow of Institute of Engineering Technology in the UK, Nigel is a global executive with over 30 years of experience in International Telecommunications. He brings his innovations to Aqua Comms through the experience gained throughout his comprehensive career that has seen him buying, building, and running international submarine cable networks. He has previously held senior positions at Cable & Wireless, FLAG Telecom and NTL. He has operated in large, medium and small enterprises and as sole trader for consulting with varied board experience over the last decade.

“Aqua Comms operates strictly as a carriers’ carrier and our FOCUS therefore is on providing high bandwidth, transport-layer subsea services and only in the wholesale market.”