Atlantic Crossing 1

AC-1
Owners:
Tyco / Level 3 Communications
Landing points
Total length14,000 km
Topologyunknown
Currently lit capacity4600 Gbit/s
TechnologyFiber optics
Date of first use1999 (1999)

Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1) is an optical submarine telecommunications cable system linking the United States and three European countries.

It transports speech and data traffic between the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany. It is one of several transatlantic communications cables. It was operated by American company Level 3 Communications and Irish company Tyco International, until their respective mergers in 2017 and 2016 with other companies.

It has landing points in:

  1. Brookhaven Cable Station, Shirley, New York, United States
  2. Land's End Cable Station, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom
  3. Westerland Cable Station, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
  4. KPN Telecom cable station, Beverwijk, Netherlands

Upgrades and renewal

During its lifetime, the design capacity of AC-1 has been upgraded over 100 times. As of 2025, the capacity of the southern path between Shirley and Cornwall, England has a design capacity of 5600 Gbps and operates at 4600 Gbps. The northern path between Brookhaven and Sylt, Germany has a design capacity of 4000 Gbps with 260 Gbps in use.

In 2025, the US FCC approved a 25-year renewal of the AC-1 cable landing license, extending its license to 2048.

References

  1. ↑ Staff writer. "VS Wijst Knelpunten Nederland Aan". RTL Nieuws (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2012-09-30. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
  2. ↑ Winston Qiu. "FCC Approves 25-Year Renewal of Atlantic Crossing-1 (AC-1) Submarine Cable Landing License". Submarine Networks. Retrieved 21 August 2026.