Repairs to begin on faulty Finland-Germany submarine cable

HELSINKI, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- A repair ship has been dispatched from Calais, France, to fix the damaged submarine cable between Finland and Germany, Finnish state-owned data transmission company Cinia said on Monday afternoon.

The point of breakage on the out-of-service submarine cable C-Lion1 is located to the east of the southern tip of Sweden's island of Oland, Cinia CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila said at a press conference.

According to Cinia, the cable will be raised from the seabed, and repairs will be made aboard the ship. Repairing cables of this type typically takes between five and 15 days.

The cause of the fault is under investigation, Cinia said earlier.

Despite the malfunction of the cable, Finland's major commercial data communications operators Elisa and Telia said that customers may not notice any disruption, as communications are continuing via alternative routes.

The C-Lion1 cable, which spans 1,173 km, connects Helsinki to the German coastal city of Rostock. Its installation in the Baltic Sea was completed in early 2016. Designed and built by Cinia, it connects data hubs in Central Europe with Finland, other Nordic countries, and Asia.