EllaLink was shortlisted as the Best Subsea Cable Operator of the Year for CC-Global Awards 2020

EllaLink is revolutionizing the connection between Europe and South America by making a new direct route between the two continents. The EllaLink express optical platform has been built with state-of-the-art coherent technology offering 72Tbps of capacity and it brings to the telecom market numerous of unique features, each of them with the potential of becoming real game-changers: 

• EllaLink offers a revolutionary 50% latency reduction on direct City to City connections between the two continents with less than 60ms between Portugal and Brazil.  
• EllaLink is the only subsea cable operator that provides a unique and direct route connecting Europe and Latin America, creating for the first time the possibility of moving massive traffic between the two continents without transiting North America, guaranteeing data privacy. 
• EllaLink has established direct connectivity between Asia and Latin America thanks to the choice of providing secure and diverse routes to Marseille connecting with Sao Paulo in less than 120ms. 
• In addition to its main destination, the system includes numerous branching units and dedicated branches to serve Morocco, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Mauritania, Cabo Verde and French Guyana. 
• EllaLink has created a new cable landing station in Sines, Portugal, an ideal site for data centre expansion to avoid other congested areas. 
• EllaLink is completely open and carrier neutral. 

What is Unique About EllaLink  

The fastest path towards Latin America from Europe and Asia 

Latency is the driver of the digital world and we are improving the ride for a combined market of over 1.2 billion people. With EllaLink, Portugal will be at less than 60ms from Brazil, and Marseille at less than 120ms from São Paulo. 

Via our direct route, and with the use of state-of-the-art technology, EllaLink will facilitate the reduction in Round Trip Delay between the European continent and Latin America which will have a big impact on the global IP market and on the enterprise IT delivery model. The EllaLink system also removes the need for European users to reach Latin America via North America, and in doing so creates improved predictability of performance because only one cable system is traversed to reach the end point instead of two (or sometimes more).  Software platforms are very sensitive to transmission delays and this limitation has forced providers to deploy their applications in data centres close to their end users. The dramatic decrease in latency provided by the EllaLink route (by the order of magnitude of 50%) offers an entirely new way for the corporate world to define the architecture of their application layer for companies present in either Europe or Latin America, which in turn creates a change in paradigm for data centre infrastructure used for app deployment.  

Bridging the digital divide securely and neutrally 

The telecoms market will of course benefit from the presence of an alternative transatlantic route, increased connectivity always offers improvement to networks.  We also hope to bridge the digital divide and promote the growth of telecoms infrastructure in smaller countries such as Mauritania and the islands of Cabo Verde, Madeira and the French Guyana, which have less demand, and smaller budgets and thus obtaining a dedicated fibre-optic system is a challenge.  To that extent, the EIB (European Investment Bank) has been very concerned, proactive and supportive towards our project helping our customer (Cabo Verde Telecom) with the financing of their participation in EllaLink. The EllaLink system will not only benefit the telecoms market, but also the scientific and education communities in Europe and Latin America through the academic networks of GEANT and RedCLARA.   

Supporting the global economy transformation  

On 28^th June 2019, The European Union and the South American trade bloc MERCOSUR, composed of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, reached the largest trade agreement the EU has ever concluded. The two regions will consolidate a strategic political and economic partnership as 20% of MERCOSUR’s trade is with the EU making it one of the region’s most important trading partners. This win-win deal will enhance employment opportunities on both sides, increasing imports and investments as well as strengthening political relations between the EU and all Latin American countries.  

China is another powerful trading partner with Latin America. The EU and China represent 44% of total trade whereas the USA only makes up 14%, thus this free trade agreement aims to reinforce the EU’s role in the global market. This also shows that the EU and Latin America do not require US intervention to create trade deals and work together effectively.  

Our end to end network has been designed to maximize our onward connectivity and the choice to provide secure and diverse routes to Marseille, for example, will enable onward routes to Asia and the rest of the world. The EllaLink route perfectly fits in with the recent increase in trading relations between Brazil, the most economically dynamic country of LATAM, and the EU, and also with China and the whole Asian continent. The latest data shows that, since 2005 the USA is no longer the main trading partner of Brazil but has been overtaken by China and the EU. In 2017, Brazilian exports’ main destination was China (22%), then the EU (20%), and finally the USA (11%). The Asiatic hegemony on the global trade and on LATAM will certainly continue to grow. Indeed, especially with new routes like the EllaLink one, Asian countries will be able to connect their cables to our data centres, for instance in Marseille, and thus, more easily reach Latin America. 

The data traffic is 1000 times higher between Latin America and the US compared to the existing solutions because of the twentieth century economic situation.  This free-trade agreement will undoubtedly reinforce connections and data traffic between these two continents justifying the EllaLink cable, which creates a southern data corridor linking Europe and Asia to Brazil while bypassing the USA.  

SinesTech – Creating a new landing in the South of Europe 

EllaLink has teamed with Global Parques to launch ‘Sines Tech Hub’, a next generation Innovation and Data Centre hub in Portugal. It is strategically positioned for the joint development of subsea cable systems and data centre infrastructures, both of which are at the core of today’s Internet. This Innovation & Data Centre Hub combines, in one location, “open access” to cost-effective land, high power density networks (including access to nearby solar panels parks), high availability backhaul routes to Madrid and Lisbon, as well as a robust and secure subsea cable landing site.  

By selecting alternative landing sites, such as Sines, EllaLink is helping to address the issue of diversity; with new landing sites come new cable stations and alternative terrestrial routes. Significant investment into our new landing site in Sines also includes horizontal directional drilling and a new fronthaul route.  The budget allows for several million euros of investment for Sines alone, a worthwhile price for diversity.