Cable, cables everywhere . . . or at least that’s what it seems like at the moment. But not just any old cables; it’s all high-capacity cables that will link Ireland with North America, and then on to Europe.

This week, there were two major announcements on that front, with Cork and Mayo set to benefit.

Earlier this week, it was Cork that was shouting about the Hibernia Express cable that had landed in the county. Hibernia has been talking up the cable for some time now. It finally made land in early August, but the fact it’s here means the link with the US is a step closer. That will be important for businesses, particularly in the finance area, where shaving a fraction of a second off the time it takes to transfer information can make all the difference.

And then Aqua Comms said its transatlantic fibre optic cable had hit shore in Mayo, where it is expected to provide a major boost for the local area. It will be capable of transferring large amounts of data between Ireland and the US. To put it in perspective, they could simultaneous download about 200,000 movies and 20 million 4G calls.

It may seem ironic the cables pledging such high-speed connectivity are coming to areas where it can be difficult to get a 3G mobile phone signal, let alone a 4G signal. But there may be a knock-on benefit for broadband connectivity in the area. According to Aqua Comms chief financial officer Martin Roche, there may even be a benefit for domestic broadband.

At the very least, it’s hoped the Mayo cable will attract more businesses to the area, particularly in cloud computing and big data. With those businesses come jobs, and a demand for further connectivity improvements. That would likely lead to a boost for domestic customers anyway, as investing money in boosting broadband in the area to cater suddenly becomes commercially viable.

However, whether it will have any real impact on the more remote rural areas of the west coast remains to be seen.