New Highspeed Data Cable from Portugal to Brazil Nears Completion

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Portuguese media report that the installation of the transatlantic submarine cable that will link Sines in Portugal to Fortaleza in Brazil, representing an investment of €170 (R$780) million, will see its first data transmission in late 2020

The submarine cable will pass through Cape Verde and Madeira, installing a data transmission capacity of 73 terabits per second, the municipality of Sines said in a statement.

The infrastructure, called Ellalink, will be implemented under the BELLA project (Building European Link to Latin America), which brings together European and South American science networks, funded by the European Commission and private funds.

Brazil has no direct connection to Europe.

In 2014 it was announced that the government of Brazil was to construct a transatlantic cable across the Atlantic Ocean in order to avoid having its Internet traffic to and from Europe intercepted by American intelligence agencies.

According to reports at the time, the fiber-optic cable will stretch for 3,500 miles from the northeastern Brazilian city of Fortaleza, state of Ceará, to the Portuguese capital Lisbon. It will cost the Brazilian government in excess of US$185 million, but it will allow the country’s existing Internet traffic to and from Europe to travel without going through cables owned by American service providers.

According to Brazilian officials, the construction of the cable is among several steps announced by the Brazilian government aimed at disassociating its communications infrastructure from American companies

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