Gemini
Gemini was the first example of the swing to privately financed cables on the North Atlantic market. When fully deployed it will be a twin cable system connecting two landing stations near New York (Manasquan N.J. and Charlestown R.I.) to two landing stations in England (Porthcurno) and Wales (Oxwich Bay), with terrestrial connectivity (“back-haul”) to New York and London already foreseen. Production service between New York and London via the first cable (Gemini South) was established in March 1998, only 18 months after initial discussions, and offers 30 Gbps of SDH loop capacity, running via the two fibre pairs in the undersea cable, each of which carries six STM-16 (2.5 Gbps) channels. The second cable (Gemini North) seems to be on schedule to enter service in October 1998. The Gemini system is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks, with Cable & Wireless Marine doing most of the marine work.