Shirley, NY, United States

Shirley, NY: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Shirley is a community on the south shore of Long Island, New York, United States, and serves as a submarine cable landing point connecting the United States to destinations across the North Atlantic. Two submarine cables come ashore at Shirley, linking the eastern seaboard of the United States to Europe — specifically to France, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Together, these cables establish Shirley as a point of transatlantic connectivity on the northeastern coastline of the United States.

The two cables landing at Shirley span a combined reach across the Atlantic, with one system extending as far as France and the United Kingdom and the other running directly to Ireland. This makes Shirley a dedicated transatlantic corridor terminus, oriented entirely toward Western European endpoints rather than regional or inter-island routes.

Cables Landing at Shirley, NY

Apollo is a transatlantic submarine cable measuring 13,000 km in length, which entered service in 2003. In addition to Shirley, NY, Apollo connects to landing points in France and the United Kingdom, forming a multi-branch transatlantic system linking the northeastern United States directly to two major Western European nations.

AEC-1 is a transatlantic submarine cable measuring 5,521 km in length, which entered service in 2016. AEC-1 connects Shirley, NY to Ireland, providing a dedicated link between the United States and the island nation on the eastern side of the North Atlantic. At 5,521 km, it is considerably shorter than Apollo, reflecting a more direct routing toward the British Isles.

Regional Context

Within the United States — a country where 113 submarine cables land across 160 landing points — Shirley ranks among the more focused landing sites, hosting 2 cables compared to larger hubs such as Boca Raton, FL, and San Juan, PR, each of which serve 8 cables, or Hermosa Beach, CA, Kapolei, HI, and Myrtle Beach, SC, each hosting 5. Shirley's two-cable profile places it in a tier of landing points that serve specific bilateral or narrow-corridor routes rather than functioning as major multi-directional hubs.

Network Role

Shirley, NY functions as a focused transatlantic terminus, with both of its submarine cables oriented exclusively toward Western Europe — reaching France and the United Kingdom via Apollo, and Ireland via AEC-1. Rather than serving as a multi-directional hub, Shirley anchors two independent transatlantic systems that together cover three European countries. The Apollo system, dating to 2003, and the AEC-1 system, added in 2016, represent successive generations of transatlantic cable investment terminating at the same Long Island landing point.

In the broader submarine cable graph of the United States, Shirley occupies a specialized role as a North Atlantic gateway on the northeastern coast, distinct from the Caribbean-facing connectivity of Florida or the Pacific routes of California and Hawaii. Its two cables ensure that Long Island's south shore participates directly in transatlantic communications infrastructure linking the United States to Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France.