Even if a mighty hurricane smashed the Causeway to pieces it would not prevent multinational clients of TeleBermuda International (TBI) from being able to operate from Bermuda with a minimum of fuss and with full access to their online data and communications network.

And if a subsea fibre optic cable linking Bermuda with the US and South America encounters a problem, the Hamilton-based company can redirect internet traffic in milliseconds.

TBI has just completed its most significant investment project in five years, creating a multilayered IP platform featuring advanced networking and security components.

Commercial and residential customers will feel the benefits of the improvements, according to the company.

There is a touch of the James Bond-style about its network operations centre at Southside. It is in proximity to a private jet terminal and LF Wade International Airport. Nearby are major fuel supplies, and the centre has capacity to store 10,000 gallons of fuel and to generate 1.5 megawatts of power.

Greg Swan, TBI’s president, explained the purpose of the set-up. “It’s important for several reasons. For a multinational corporation domiciled in Bermuda one of the critical factors is the Causeway,” he said.

If a powerful hurricane caused extensive damage to the Causeway, a Hamilton-based multinational would be able to continue its on-Island operations through the Southside centre.

“It would have the ability to still fly someone to Bermuda and they could have live and active use of their [data and communications] infrastructure.”

The centre is equipped with a boardroom and video conferencing facilities.

However, this is only one aspect of TBI’s enhanced platform. It worked with Bermuda’s CCS Group, a full service information technology company, to refashion and upgrade its capabilities with components from Cisco, Fortinet, Arbor Network and Artista.

The increasing prevalence of cyber attacks is addressed with state-of-the-art distributed denial of service protection and managed firewalls.

Mr Swan said cyberattacks were a concern for Bermuda, particularly with the Island’s elevated profile in recent years.

“We have a level of protection against any kind of attack, and we can detect an attack before it reaches Bermuda.”

The company uses the GlobeNet bidirectional submarine telecoms cable. This is a self-healing ring, which gives TBI a number of fail-safe options should there be a connection problem with the cable.

Prior to the company making its latest infrastructure investment, it could achieve a latency of 30 milliseconds on the Bermuda-North America portion of the GlobeNet cable ring. That has now come down to between 22 and 24 milliseconds.

For a commercial customer relying on a swift, constant connection with New York, a circuit failure would normally present a problem. But TBI’s IP multilayered platform allows traffic to be redirected away from the faulty section — which could be the landing station at New Jersey — and, in the blink of an eye, be rerouted to New York via GlobeNet’s alternative landing point in Florida. There are further landing points in South America.

“The customer never loses connection,” said Mr Swan.

Bringing the improved platform to fruition has taken 14 months. TBI chose CCS after the company “demonstrated to us they had the network solution architecture capabilities, and we felt comfortable with the design”, said Mr Swan.

The Southside facility is a tier-3 data centre and is SSAE 16 compliant, which means it has “blanket approval” to be a supportive network for multinational corporation

The company places equal importance on commercial and residential clients, and recognises the growing residential demand for more and better quality bandwidth, said Mr Swan. Commenting on improvements, he said that with increased bandwidth the company can provide faster and cheaper internet for residential customers.

Ten years ago, TBI had the equivalent of two gigabits of capacity on its network, today it has ten gigabits active and provision for up to 240. Its new platform is also ready for the newest internet communications protocol IPv6.

“We fully expect this upgrade will attract business that demand the highest standards for data management and security in Bermuda,” said Mr Swan.

“We wanted to ensure that this new design positioned us to take full advantage of the upturn Bermuda is presently seeing, and positioning the company and Bermuda in terms of offshore multinationals considering Bermuda as part of their global strategic positioning. We have positioned ourselves for the next five years in terms of infrastructure.”