Columbia Ventures Buys Hibernia Atlantic

VANCOUVER, Wash., and DUBLIN, Ireland, April 4 -- Columbia Ventures Corp. (CVC) announced today that its subsidiaries have completed the purchase of a 12,200-kilometer fiber optic submarine cable system connecting North America with Europe. Formerly known as 360atlantic, the assets were sold, pursuant to Canadian court approval, as part of a reorganization plan involving 360atlantic, CVC has renamed the system Hibernia Atlantic.

The system is configured as a self-healing ring on diverse paths, with cable landing stations near Halifax, Nova Scotia; Boston, Mass.; Dublin, Ireland; and Liverpool, England. It offers secure and resilient bandwidth services using recent DWDM, SONET/SDH and optical switching technologies. It has immediate capacity up to 160 Gb/s on each path and can be upgraded to handle a protected capacity of 1.9 terabits per second, or more than 10 times the current lit capacity.

Hibernia Atlantic is based in Dublin. Patrick Coughlan, formerly with 360networks, has been appointed managing director.

In addition to the Hibernia system, CVC has also acquired terrestrial fiber-based telecommunication capacity from 360networks that can be used to connect customers across North America.

For more information, visit: www.360.net