Project Liberty will see a custom made, high capacity fibre optic cable laid between the English south coast and L’Ancresse Bay on the northwest tip of Guernsey. The cable will then be connected to Jersey, and onwards to France, creating what Jersey Telecom describes as "a resilient, ultra high capacity off island network."

“Over the last three years we have invested over GBP11m in Next Generation Network (NGN) technology and this will allow us to provide new services such ultra-high speed broadband access to the home and more efficient private circuits for business”, says Jersey Telecom’s Managing Director, Bob Lawrence.

He continued:

“The final piece of the jigsaw will be Liberty, which will provide the necessary bandwidth at the right price to power these new services and a secure and resilient connection into other global networks. Liberty is essential to enable local people to make the most of the next generation of fixed, mobile and broadband services which will all be based on data and Internet technologies.

“We have decided to go ahead with this investment to give Jersey Telecom both the strategic and financial independence it needs. Liberty will also strengthen the economy by improving the Island’s telecommunications links, making it an even more attractive centre for business. We believe it is in the long term interests of Jersey Telecom, competition and our customers to make this investment now."

The first stage of the project, due start in the next few weeks, will be to conduct a sonar survey of the seabed along the proposed cable route. Once the route has been defined, the cable will be custom manufactured before it is laid during 2007.