Spain is increasingly important in the market for submarine internet cables
According to Google, 98% of all international Internet traffic currently runs on submarine cables. A massive global network at the bottom of the oceans and seas allows you to communicate, watch the latest movies on sites like Netflix, or play video games with people on the other side of the world.
Logical steps
Until recently, most submarine cable projects passed through Spain, and many technology companies decided to connect the coast of New Jersey with their data centers to Ireland. “The logical next step was to establish a direct connection with the UK except Ireland, because every time a submarine cable hits the ground the delay increases,” said Data 4 Country Manager Juan Wamonde. After the United Kingdom, the next stop is Amsterdam, ‘but these lines are more and more crowded’.
The importance of Spain
The same geographical location that supported trade with South America many centuries ago makes Spain attractive to technology companies. These secure ‘information highways’ via submarine cables connect to Spain’s growing data center infrastructure.
‘Spain’s geographical position was privileged. It has access to the UK in the north, South America in the southwest and Africa in the south, ”Wamonde continued. Communication with Brazil, which runs through the Canary Islands, is also expected to be operational within a month, reducing the connection delay with South America by about 50%, with the server delay time – server response time – to less than 60 milliseconds.
Cross section
The Iberian Peninsula is important for the connection between Europe and North Africa, especially the connection to the west coast of the continent. Cables also run to Palermo via Valencia, enabling access to Asia via the Suez Canal: important crossroads for this type of cable. Facebook also contributed to 2Africa; An international submarine telecommunications cable aimed at crossing the coast of the African continent to connect Europe and Africa and the Middle East. The architecture is complex and involves the installation of a 37,000 km long cable from the United Kingdom that travels across the African continent, with branches to a few countries, returning to Europe via a Perth in Barcelona.
In Spain, Bilbao plays a key role, with a mooring point for two important submarine cables connecting Pisco to the United States.
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