- 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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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 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.
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.
Yes, that’s exactly the point, moving critical digital infrastructure out of the hands of US business and state control.