By Jaymie Scotto

SUMMIT, N.J. & DUBLIN–Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transAtlantic submarine transport cable provider, today announces that its company's CEO, Bjarni K. Thorvardarson, has been awarded a Golden Bridges Award for promoting partnerships between North America and Ireland through its new, fiber optic cable build development, entitled “Project Kelvin”. Hibernia Atlantic is the only extensive submarine and terrestrial cable deployment that will directly connect the Island of Ireland to North America.

The award was presented to Mr. Thorvardarson by Valerie Watts, CEO of the Derry City Council during the Irish Echo ‘Gateways to Tomorrow' Conference in Boston.

“It is an honor to be recognized with a Golden Bridges Award,” states Bjarni Thorvardarson. “And it is privilege to provide local and global businesses access to our secure and ultra low latency capacity to further drive economic development, cooperation and innovative technology. This award is a testament to the great people of Hibernia working around the clock and I'm proud to accept it on their behalf.”

This historic initiative will add additional and much needed low latency capacity to the Island of Ireland, to further support both local and global companies. Local companies are attracted to the high capacity, extremely secure and reliable network. Businesses can now increase their communications and next-generation Internet service offerings as well as increase their access to a larger marketplace of available service providers. The new network is also attractive to global companies, such as leading financial houses, exchange markets, service providers and media companies, who require fast, low latency bandwidth that avoids traditionally congested routes, such as around the New York and London waterways.

Hibernia Atlantic recently brought its industry leading fiber optic submarine cable ashore at Portrush, Northern Ireland. This cable will connect to Hibernia Atlantic's terrestrial fiber optic ring currently being deployed to 13 towns and cities, including Armagh, Ballymena, Belfast, Castleblayney, Coleraine, Drogheda, Dundalk, Letterkenny, Londonderry, Monaghan, Omagh, Portadown and Strabane. By the end of this year, the cable system will connect to Hibernia Atlantic's existing transatlantic cable, thereby directly connecting Northern Ireland and the Island of Ireland to both North America and Europe.

For a map of the cable build or more on Hibernia Atlantic, please click here or visit http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/images/NIrelandMaps5-09_000.jpg.

About Hibernia Atlantic:

Hibernia Atlantic is the largest, privately held, diverse transAtlantic submarine cable transport provider. Hibernia is a US, wholly-owned subsidiary of Columbia Ventures Corporation (CVC). It is a TransAtlantic submarine cable and terrestrial cable network that offers over (75) redundant network Points of Presence (PoPs) throughout Canada, US, UK and mainland Europe on over 24,000 kilometers of network.