Bermuda's residents and businesses can look forward to cheaper and faster Internet services in the future with the undersea Challenger cable system now up and running, The Royal Gazette can exclusively reveal.

Cable Co. Ltd., a Bermudian telecommunications company which is owned by KeyTech Ltd., announced that Challenger, which runs between Bermuda and the US, was now finally fully operational, despite being installed in December 2008.

But North Rock Communications and FKB Transact, who had initially planned to be equity owners in the company, however, they have now elected to be its customers instead, due to the impact of the economic downturn on business, with KeyTech assuming full control as 100 percent shareholder and investor.

The idea for the Challenger cable was first discussed between KeyTech, North Rock and FKB Transact in 2006, the Class A license to build and operate the cable was granted by the Ministry of Energy, Telecommunications and E-Commerce in December 2007 and the cable reached the Island in September last year.

The cable is the first link run by a local company, the others being a year-old link operated by UK-based Cable and Wireless and an 11-year-old link run by Brasil Telecom.

Sheila Lines, CEO of KeyTech, said that the Challenger project was an exciting development in the future of technology in Bermuda - the first time the company had owned international facilities in its 120-year history.

"We're thrilled to add Challenger capacity to the international facilities available to Bermuda," she said.

"This was a complex project with a number of moving parts, including licensing in Bermuda and the USA and construction elements.

"Working with key partners, including the Ministry of Telecommunications, BTC, Verizon, Alcatel, North Rock Communications and Transact, our team put all the pieces together to successfully complete the project.

"For Bermuda, I think it has a big impact for customers for what they can do with capacity - it is all about what this data means in terms of what it enables people to do and keeping Bermuda connected to the rest of the world."

Ms Lines said that irrespective of equity ownership, KeyTech would continue to work closely with North Rock and FKB Transact in the use of Challenger's capacity, not discriminating against and being open with all carriers involved with the cable, in addition to expanding the system's customer base to more carriers.

The project was completed on budget and ahead of schedule by Alcatel, who laid the 1,445 kilometre cable linking its facility at BTC's former telephone exchange building in Victoria Street, Hamilton to a Verizon centre Rhode Island in the US, offering a current capacity of 20 Gigabits per second (Gbit/s), with the potential to be increased to 320 Gbit/s. BTC was involved in installation at the Bermuda end since February 2008.

Work on the construction of the cable was finished four months ago, but the process was held up by further commissioning and licensing with the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and Bermuda Government required to be concluded during the first quarter of 2009, as well as testing the service for customers.

North Rock and Transact had originally partnered with Keytech on the license application and product specifications in the planning and construction stage of Challenger, but had since agreed to be customers instead of equity shareholders as a result of economic circumstances, along with KeyTech subsidiary Logic Communications, to use the cable to meet their customers' international bandwidth needs.

Vicki Coelho, general manager of North Rock, said the new cable had allowed the provision of more bandwidth at a competitive price to its customers, while it was also good to see a 100-percent Bermudian-owned company running it, with any profits made remaining in the Island's economy.

"North Rock Communications is pleased to be a partner with cable Co. and have capacity on the Challenger Cable System," she said.

"As a result of capacity over Challenger, North Rock customers have seen increases of up to four times their previous speed.

"In this time of economic uncertainty, North Rock is thrilled to be able to purchase bandwidth from a Bermudian-owned and operated company.

"For the first time profits from an undersea cable will be reinvested in the local economy, which will benefit us all.

"Moving forward, we believe that the trend of increased bandwidth available to Bermudians will continue, allowing for new products and services, as well as a richer Internet experience."

Paul Coleman, vice-president of marketing at Logic, said the cable would enable improved customer service to be provided with the capacity to grow based on their needs, as well as a better redundancy.