Evie, United Kingdom

How the Internet Reaches Evie

Evie is a small coastal settlement on the northern shore of Mainland, the largest island in Orkney, Scotland. Situated at the far north of the United Kingdom, it sits well beyond the Scottish mainland, separated from it by the Pentland Firth. For a location this remote, the question of how international internet traffic arrives is a direct one: it comes via a single submarine cable that connects Evie to a string of other landing points across Scotland and the Northern Isles.

Unlike the major cable hubs on the UK's southern and western coasts, Evie is not a terminus for transatlantic or intercontinental routes. Instead, it sits on the R100 North cable — a domestic infrastructure project linking Orkney and Shetland communities to one another and to the Scottish mainland. International traffic ultimately reaches Evie by travelling through this domestic cable network, which ties into the broader UK internet infrastructure at mainland connection points.

The Cable Serving Evie

The R100 North cable spans 224 km and reached ready-for-service status in 2023. It is an entirely domestic UK cable, connecting Evie to five other landing points: Baile Mòr (Isle of Mull), Bay of London, Belmont (Unst, Shetland), Burravoe (Yell, Shetland), and Crockness (Hoy, Orkney). The cable forms a spine linking scattered island communities across the Northern Isles and Western Isles of Scotland, carrying traffic between these points rather than reaching abroad directly.

Regional Context

The United Kingdom hosts 42 submarine cables across 105 landing points, with an average cable length of 1,451 km — reflecting the country's role as one of the world's most connected nations for transatlantic and European traffic. The first UK submarine cable entered service in 1990. Evie stands apart from the country's major cable hubs: Bude in Cornwall, for example, serves seven international cables, while Blackpool, Southport, and Holyhead each handle two or three. Evie is one of the smaller, domestically-focused terminuses, serving the Orkney island group rather than acting as a gateway for intercontinental routes.

What This Means for Connectivity

All submarine-delivered traffic reaching Evie flows through the R100 North cable. An outage on that cable would cut off this subsea connection to the other island communities it links, including Crockness and the Shetland landing points at Burravoe and Belmont. The cable carries inter-island and mainland-to-island traffic rather than direct international routes, meaning Evie's international connectivity depends on traffic transiting through the broader UK network before reaching one of the country's internationally-connected landing points.

Understanding Evie's position illustrates how the UK's submarine cable map extends well beyond the headline transatlantic hubs: alongside the major international gateways, a layer of shorter domestic cables quietly connects remote and island communities to the national network.