The Virginia Beach Development Authority has approved the sale of a 3.5-acre site to Telefónica for $735,000, where Telefónica plans to build a 20,000 sq ft data centre. The new infrastructure will improve communication reliability and deliver enhanced resilience by increasing the number of US landing points.
Telefónica plans to deploy a new submarine cable, BRUSA, stretching 11,000km in length linking Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza in Brazil with San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Virginia Beach by early 2018. BRUSA will support ultrafast transmission capacity and increase end-to-end connectivity and availability of ultrahigh-speed broadband services.
Speaking exclusively to Capacity in March, Juan Revilla, CEO of Telefónica’s Wholesale Business Unit, detailed the opportunities BRUSA will bring and explained that the cable will be opened up to third parties.
“These companies cluster, and we plan to leverage the Telefónica announcement to bring more data centres to the city," stated Warren Harris, economic development director at Virginia Beach.
“Additionally, we anticipate even more interest because the stronger telecom infrastructure will have great appeal to businesses that require big data."
"Being the first transoceanic fibre cable station in the Mid-Atlantic is a differentiator for the City of Virginia Beach," said Matt Arvay, chief information officer at Virginia Beach. "Because we are progressive in our modernisation efforts, we were fully prepared for this opportunity. As cities compete to attract new businesses, the communications infrastructure is a key component, and this puts Virginia Beach in the telecommunications conversation globally."
