INI to sell Coleraine data centre abroad

INVESTMENT Minister Arlene Foster says Coleraine will reap the benefits of a new data centre that Invest NI intends promoting overseas. 5NINES recently announced it would invest in a data centre in the town. Ms Foster said: “Invest NI’s overseas sales teams will promote the new Data Centre to relevant companies in international markets.

“This, along with the excellent telecoms and IT research base at the University of Ulster Coleraine and the engineering talent available in the North West region should help attract more FDI and local companies to explore the location as a suitable place to establish and grow their operations from.”

Back in 2009 a strident campaign to locate a ‘telehouse’ eventually resulted in a facility dubbed just that being placed in Fort George.

The Sentinel, however, reported how a representative from Hibernia Atlantic - the firm responsible for the multi-million pounds transatlantic Project Kelvin telecommunications cable - struggled to get his head around the uproar surrounding the divisive location of the “telehouse” - an unmanned portable container - during a lengthy public row over the facility in February, 2009.

The paper later reported how the ‘tele-exchange’ at Fort George was exactly the same as seven other ‘Points of Presence’ across Northern Ireland despite a strident campaign to locate a ‘Telehouse’ here.