Link: https://www.gadgetreview.com/norwegian-company-pitches-2800-mile-undersea-cable-linking-canada-and-europe-to-bypass-the-us

Archived version

• Bulk Infrastructure proposes a 6,500-kilometer Norway-to-Montreal cable bypassing U.S. territory entirely.
• Costs exceed $620 million, with financing, customers, and route surveys still unresolved.
• Routing around U.S. territory does not guarantee independence from American networks downstream.

Norwegian infrastructure company Bulk Infrastructure is proposing a direct fiber cable from Norway to Canada, routed around the United States entirely. The project, named Leif Erikson, remains a proposal, not a construction announcement.

Canada currently has relatively few direct international cable options that avoid U.S. routing, a structural gap the project is designed to address. That context, combined with growing government interest in infrastructure resilience, gives the proposal its strategic weight.

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YES! I want it. A way to get Canada closer to Europe... in preparation for them to join Schengen and the EEA

Why is the image for the article from a completely different project on the other side of the world?

Do it.

Because it fits. What image would be used otherwise? Just the bottom of the sea?

They would probably preefer to sea the Norwegian or Canadian flag.

Hehe, sea

I dunno, maybe a fibre optic cable rather than an artists' impression of an underwater power line?

The syrup must flow.

Sorry, this is a data pipeline. Unless…

Let’s do it!

also "reef" in preefer.

Slurp slurp The syrup our pancakes deserve.

The new "oil", filling sweet loving Euros with energy.

I'm love the idea and all but can someone eli5 why Norway - Montreal and not to somewhere in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia? Wouldn't that be just as good and quite a bit shorter/cheaper?

I take it you didn't read the article?

I can only see upsides with also adding some syrup pipelines next to the fiber cable.
Crude oil is just awful on pancakes for example, why do people even want to import all that yuck? SMH

Love the idea, but the US would just blow it up if it hurt their interests

Where did you get Montreal from? The article says it's going to Newfoundland.

Edit: I had also not read the article far enough, it's going from Newfoundland to Montreal with a regular cable over land.

I dont understand the last point, are we saying the existence of the cable outside the US doesn't prevent US tech being used on it? Because that isnt a con, its a given and how the infrastructure should work. It would never be a private network, if it is for comms anyone can use it. Likely, the US could just buy pairs to use themselves but the location gives it opportunity.

The great trans-Atlantic maple pipeline!

How much maple syrup can flow through the pipe?

Faster connection between Frankfurt and Canadian stock exchanges, encrypted personal data being on EU and Canadian servers, lower ping for gamers, better teleconferencing for the 2 tier EU meetings, etc.

Seems like a win to me

Asking the real questions.

That's why they in secret will build a second cable from Canada's west coast and down around South America 🤫

cool but canada is part of the five eyes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
so this would literally accomplish nothing except making a norwegian company rich

There's not much left.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-maple-syrup-reserves-nearly-depleted-9.7386889

Build it first, take a picture later.

Can't you just chew on the leaves to curb withdrawal symptoms?

Also important that it bypasses Britain (from were there are cables directly to Canada) since the Brits do digital surveillance on everything that goes through cables that land in Britain and give that data to the Americans, as shown in the Snowden Revelations.

Watch how quickly an 'identified terrorist group' sabotages that cable.

You wouldn’t download a plate of maple syrup

The "identified terrorist group" will be Russians pretending to be Ukrainians...

Changes are never made overnight for something like this

Just don't make it out of copper because those american salvage companies are feeling the squeeze right now, just like everybody else.

They should use the new 24% faster "hollow-core fiber" that China developed.

I would totally use my Irish passport to get into Canada if they joined Shengen.

The undersea cables are all very vulnerable to hostile nation states. You all need satellites as well, although they are deploying satellite killers in orbit as we speak, the russians and the us, not sure what china is doing.

Or the US pretending to be someone, don't think they won't, it's going downhill fast here.

The cable itself isn't what's at issue, it's whom owns the infrastructure on the end of it. ie if a European owned cable crosses the Atlantic and lands in America into a landing station owned by AT&T or Comcast it's reliant on US compliance in its traffic. America has proven itself to be a hostile power to European interests now and therefore cannot be relied upon.

(Un)Fun fact, a major function of the 5 eyes is to do end runs around our prohibitions on our intelligence agencies spying on our own citizens. We say our partners found the information and they shared it back with us.

The point is to protect comms during times of peace, not war.

Canada does have the other kind too. Although a better use would be to take solar power through Europe from Northern Africa.

Just need superconducting power cables.

MACsec your WAN links.

Yeah but it isn't landing into the US. It would be proper order to take control of sucb infrastructure at a state level and not have private industry manage the nodes.

We've (excluding the US,) been at peace for some time, and cables are getting cut left and right. Not even all recently, even 15 years back there were some suspicious ones out by Asia, forget the details, but Fox was up in arms about it.

Edit: What should be done, is to mass produce some gear to hook onto the cables or near them, to spy out sabotage attempts and give early warnings. Then scramble the warplanes.

Or even an electrical line, with flashpoints where if a diver or submarine drone gets near, they can send electricity through the water to incapacitate the threat.

Counterpoint: place a few hundred thousand wireless repeaters on buoys.

Serious answer: software encryption is a gazillion times cheaper than this. If however freedom from reliance on American infra is the goal, then I stand corrected.

I believe the goal is to get away from USA infrastructure. Canada is already looking at building additional internal infrastructure so that domestic traffic never goes south of the border.

All the software encryption in the world is useless if a deranged USA leader gives the order to stop traffic originating/going to Canada.

Basically any country with an air force and a ballistic missile program has satellite killers.

China has demonstrated the ability to shoot down satellites using a fighter loaded with medium range missiles.

Briefly flew over it, was in a hurry.

Ah ok. Makes sense, thx.