Published 2026-09-12 · Event 2023-10-17

EXA’s 17 October 2023 Havfrue paper is a partnership on a 2020 cable, not a new build

On 17 October 2023 EXA Infrastructure and Bulk Fiber Networks announced a strategic partnership including the Havfrue transatlantic system. The cable became ready for service in 2020, spans 7,851 kilometres and has a system capacity of more than 144 Tbps. It lands Bulk’s N01 campus in Kristiansand and DK01 in Esbjerg. That is not a Swedish landing.

EXA Infrastructure’s 17 October 2023 notice is the dated partnership source used here. EXA and Bulk Fiber Networks entered a strategic partnership including the Havfrue subsea cable connecting the United States to Norway and Denmark and into EXA’s European backbone. A partnership including an existing system is not a new cable announcement. The system became ready for service in 2020.

The physical sentences must keep EXA’s numbers. Havfrue spans 7,851 kilometres, with a system capacity of more than 144 Tbps and a trunk connecting New Jersey to Esbjerg on the Jutland peninsula. EXA says it is the first transatlantic system ever to connect into Norway and the only system then serving the northern corridor. Those are route claims. They are not a Swedish landing station.

Landing campuses are named and foreign. The cable lands in Bulk’s N01 data-centre campus in Kristiansand and in DK01 in Esbjerg. Bulk’s undated system page, fetched for this register, says the system entered service in the fourth quarter of 2020, with endpoints at Wall, New Jersey; Esbjerg; Dublin; and Kristiansand. The Kristiansand branch is fully funded, owned and operated by Bulk. The overall system is a co-build with Meta, Google and Aqua Comms. Round-trip delay between Wall and Esbjerg is given as 72.5 milliseconds. An undated companion page does not invent a 2023 ready-for-service date.

Named Nordic fibre rows stay on their own papers. Cinia’s C-Lion2 northern-EU gateways, the C-Lion1 Swedish exclusive-economic-zone fault, Polar Connect / North Pole Fiber, Far North Fiber, GlobalConnect’s Sweden–Finland cable and Arelion’s Helsinki–Warsaw terrestrial route are different issuers. Havfrue does not become those systems. A market-size sentence on the EXA page is not used here.

DataCenterSweden records 17 October 2023 as a commercial partnership wrapping a 2020 Norway–Denmark–US cable. No Swedish project identifier is attached. The next update would need a later primary source that names a new landing or a Swedish branch. Until then, N01 and DK01 stay the named landings.

Why it matters

A transatlantic headline with Nordic landings is easy to file as a new Swedish cable. The October notice is usable only if 2020 stays ready-for-service and Kristiansand and Esbjerg stay the named landings.

What remains unknown

The partnership notice does not publish a Swedish landing, a new construction start, or a 2023 ready-for-service date.

Sources