The GO Group today announced a multi-million euro investment in its second submarine cable, linking Malta to Italy via Interoute’s pan-European network which connects 85 cities in 22 countries across 54,000 cable kilometres of fibre.

The submarine cable project, which will be known as GO-1 Mediterranean Cable System, will be completed by the fourth quarter of this year and is being entrusted to an international consortium made up of Alcatel-Lucent and Elettra.

The project was announced by GO Chairman Sonny Portelli, GO director Deepak Padmanabhan and GO Chief Executive Officer David Kay in the presence of Minister for Investment, Industry and IT Austin Gatt.

MrPortelli said the company was investing in the new cable in order to offer further resiliency to its existing international links by having a completely diverse route.

The new submarine cable will augment GO’s international capacity and cater for projected demands for broadband services which will be increasing in the future, especially with projects such as SmartCity. Moreover, it will give GO the possibility to procure broadband capacity from Interoute,” Mr Portelli said.

Dr Gatt said this was the most fundamental building block in the edifice which the government was calling ‘The Smart Island’.

"We will be anything but smart if we continue to live in fear of disconnection from the rest of the world.”

Mr Kay said the cable will link St. Paul’s Bay with Mazara del Vallo in Sicily. The physical cable route will be completely different to that of the existing GO cable that links St. George’s Bay to Catania.