Altibox Carrier has officially announced Verena, a new 630-kilometre subsea cable system designed to increase digital capacity and resilience between the UK and Denmark. The system is scheduled to be ready-for-service in the fourth quarter of 2028.
The 16-fibre-pair system will connect a landing station just south of Scarborough on England’s east coast to Esbjerg in Denmark, forming a critical new digital bridge and is expected to ease mounting capacity constraints.
“Altibox’s ambition is to become the leading provider of network infrastructure and managed services in the Nordics. The announcement of Verena is a major step toward that goal,” said Svein Arild Ims, CEO of Altibox Carrier.
“Traffic in and out of the Nordic region is projected to surge in the coming years. The number of existing and planned data centers has grown exponentially, and the AI-driven expansion of hyperscalers is pushing today’s subsea cables to their limits.”
Verena is named in honour of Verena Holmes, the pioneering English engineer credited with advancing mechanical and electrical engineering in the UK. The name reflects Altibox Carrier’s focus on innovation and excellence in engineering as it embarks on what company executives describe as a technically complex and capital-intensive project.
“The cable will be built using the highest standards and the best technologies available,” said Espen Vestli, COO of Altibox Carrier. “Verena is being engineered to meet the stringent requirements of the world’s most quality-conscious customers.”
The project has been carefully structured to combine technical expertise with operational reliability. The wet plant will be supplied by Xtera, while the overall programme management is being handled by JTD Associates in partnership with Pelagian (an OEG Company) and Cecon Contracting.
Altibox Carrier, backed by owners HitecVision and Lyse, has acquired 100% of Woodstock Cable Ltd, a UK-based digital infrastructure company that played a pivotal role in the project’s initial development.
Last month at Capacity Europe we sat down with Ciena’s Anders Grand and Altibox Carrier’s Espen Vestli to discuss the record-breaking 1.6 Tbps Norway–UK link, the growing role of green energy in infrastructure expansion, and how Norway’s vision to become the most digitised nation by 2030 is driving hyperscaler and neoscaler investment.
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