Marine Fibre in the North Sea

Flute was a consequence of the frustration with European data transmission tariffs while I ran PIPEX.

The price of bandwidth between London and Paris was several times more than the price between London and New York. In effect the European Telcos were failing to operate in a competitive manner. PIPEX's representations to government and the EU had no effect.

In order to fix this problem, I decided to lay my own fibre between the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium. 

Within 6 months of our "lighting" the fibre, European tariffs started to drop precipitously. Not just on our routes, but all European route. I.e. Once the "Cartel attitude" was broken, full competition took hold.

Flute's Fibre also achieved a number of "Firsts" in its deployment, transforming the technology deployment of Marine fibre . E.g. Sale of Bare fibre, Repeaterless, RF break detection, Wave Division Multiplexing...

Flute Ltd was acquired by Interoute Communication Ltd