EllaLink nears €25 million contract from GÉANT and RedCLARA for capacity on submarine network

EllaLink has announced that it has received an "Intent to Award" for a €25 millioncontract from GÉANT and RedCLARA on behalf of the BELLA (Building the Europe Link with Latin America) consortium. The contract will cover the purchase of capacity on the upcoming EllaLink submarine cable.

The EllaLink cable system will offer 72 Tbps of capacity between Brazil, Spain, and Portugal. Connecting the major hubs of Sao Paulo, Brazil and Fortaleza, Brazil with Lisbon, Portugal and Madrid, Spain, the submarine cable system will be ready for service in 2020, says EllaLink.

The transatlantic system will enable data privacy, high-capacity transmission, and low latency between the key financial and population centers of Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Providing what EllaLink attests are the first ever direct fiber pairs between Europe and Latin America, the undersea cable system will connect data centers in Madrid, Lisbon, Fortaleza, and Sao Paulo.

The new capacity will strengthen links between the research and education (R&E) networks in the two continents through the BELLA consortium, enabling collaboration between European and Latin American scientific and academic communities.

The consortium's intent to award decision finalizes a two-year public tender process that involved several European operators, and concluded with an agreement and publication of the decision. Before completing final contract signatures, the parties will finish the structured BELLA procurement process, EllaLink affirms.

BELLA seeks to procure and deploy a long-term indefeasible right of use (IRU) for spectrum on a direct submarine cable between Europe and Latin America to create a 100G-capable R&E network across Latin America. According to EllaLink, BELLA is used by a consortium of the regional R&E networks GÉANT and Latin America's RedCLARA, and the national R&E networks of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

EllaLink's cable system is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks. In a separate announcement, Marguerite II, a pan-European equity fund, has signed an agreement to join the EllaLink submarine cable system as new sponsor to help develop the project.

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