The Business Post Interview with Nigel Bayliff
7th September 2021
The Sunday Interview: Nigel Bayliff
“We ask investors for $200m to finance a fibre-optic cable project and then we bury that investment under the sea”
Nigel Bayliff, chief executive of Aqua Comms, the undersea fibre-optic cable carriers’ carrier, insists that if Ireland wants to win big tech projects, the planning system needs a drastic overhaul
It’s more than 150 years since the very first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable between Ireland and the US was successfully installed. After multiple failed attempts due to cables snapping or being lost at sea, the Atlantic Telegraph Company finally connected both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in July 1866, when the last leg of the connection was brought ashore in Newfoundland.
Over 3,000 kilometres away on the other side of the Atlantic, the cable ran ashore at Valentia Island just off the Kerry coast. The very first message sent on this new telegraph line was a simple news bulletin that read: “A treaty of peace has been signed between Austria and Prussia.”
