How is the Grace Hopper subsea cable leveraging Telxius’ Derio Communications Hub capabilities?
Our Derio Communications Hub in the north of Spain is a purpose-built infrastructure that offers an open architecture aimed to ensure that every carrier, hyperscaler, cloud and/or content provider benefits from its cutting-edge services and its high interconnection capacity. With Tier III specifications, Derio combines the functionalities of a cable landing station with those of an international PoP. Joining these strengths effectively means Derio is a one-stop shop for a wide range of cable services.
With the recent arrival of Grace Hopper, our Derio Communications Hub is now hosting two ultra-high capacity next generation subsea cables: Marea and now Grace Hopper. Telxius provides landing and colocation services for Google’s subsea cable at our Sopelana station, near Bilbao, and from there, this new system will connect to the resources and infrastructure offered by the Derio Communications Hub, also located near Bilbao. Thus, Google and its customers and users will have access to ultrahigh-quality colocation, capacity and IP services that will enable them to connect to the rest of Europe and across the world.
With the likes of the Marea and Dunant systems, what differentiates Telxius' transatlantic proposition from its competitors?
The transatlantic network route is one of the busiest in the world and Telxius plays a critical role in connecting the US and Europe, addressing the enormous growth of data and content needs between Europe and the United States, contributing to empower the global digital economy.
Telxius transatlantic proposition directly connects Ashburn, Richmond and Virginia Beach in the US to Paris, Madrid and Derio (Bilbao) in Europe. This means direct access to areas with the largest concentration of data centres in the world and key connectivity hubs.
The Dunant cable, connecting Virginia Beach (US) with the French Atlantic coast, combined with Marea, connecting Sopelana (Bilbao) with Virginia Beach (US), make one of the lowest latency and highest capacity routes globally. Furthermore, these two next generation subsea cables are the most modern ones on its unmatched diverse transatlantic route, further south than other subsea cables in the North Atlantic.
As we know, Telxius expanded its subsea portfolio with the launch of its Mistral cable. What need in the market does this system address?
As you say, Telxius has recently announced that the Mistral system is now ready for service. With the rapid rise in cloud adoption and an increasing demand for higher capacity, lower latency and higher availability, this next generation submarine cable is ready for service at a pivotal time. Mistral means that Telxius effectively contributes with the highest standards of service, reliability and security in the Latin American region, creating opportunities for businesses and communities across Latin America and optimizing digital services for society at large.
Mistral is a next generation high-capacity fibre optic submarine cable that runs along the Latin American Pacific coast linking Puerto San Jose (Guatemala), with Valparaiso (Chile). With additional landing points in Salinas (Ecuador), Lurin (Peru) and Arica (Chile), Mistral provides the lowest latency from Guatemala to Chile. With approximately 7,300 kilometres, six fibre pairs and 132 Tbps of potential capacity, Mistral is the first subsea cable in 20 years to connect Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.
The Mistral cable was named after the Latin American poet Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, otherwise known as Gabriela Mistral, who was the first Latin American woman to receive a Nobel prize. In addition to her celebrated contributions to the writing world, Mistral was an inspirational educator across Latin America, the United States and Europe, representing Latin America at the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, and attending conferences of women and educators globally.
In combination with Junior, Tannat and Brusa, Mistral allows Telxius to offer next generation diverse and robust subsea network routes throughout Latin America and to connect the region to the U.S. and beyond. These systems represent essential infrastructure that enable Latin America to meet today’s enterprise needs.
September saw Telxius partner with Ciena on the deployment of 400 Gbps ethernet services across its network. What will this technology upgrade mean for end-customers?
The increased adoption of cloud-based services and data-intensive applications such as video streaming, online gaming, and content services, along with innovations in 5G, AI, and machine learning, are rapidly driving the need for faster speeds and higher-capacity bandwidth.
Telxius’ network is the first to have a 400 Gb/s ethernet interface available in both the transatlantic and the LATAM-USA routes, including our next-generation cables Marea, Dunant, Brusa, Junior, Tannat and Mistral-. The collaboration with top-tier providers such as Infinera and Ciena opens up possibilities for us to offer enhanced ethernet services to customers that seamlessly support the rapid bandwidth demands of today’s data-intensive cloud and network applications.
How is Telxius supporting the development of Spain as key digital hub?
Spain has the potential to become the European hub par excellence due to its subsea cable connections and privileged geographical position linking the Atlantic, North Africa and Europe. Moreover, according to a recent study, Madrid's position as a hub for digital infrastructure has also been strengthened in recent years.
Telxius has carried out important infrastructure developments connecting Spain in the past few years. We landed Marea, which is one of the highest capacity subsea cables in the world, in Sopelana (Bilbao), directly connecting Spain with Virginia Beach (US). Then we built the Derio Communications Hub, just a few kilometres away from Marea’s landing point, in order to leverage the full capacity of this cable and connect it to the main communications hubs in Europe like Madrid, Paris, Marseille, London or Frankfurt, thus providing our customers with unprecedented levels of interconnection. Furthermore, Derio has recently started to host a second next generation subsea cable, Google’s Grace Hopper, for which Telxius is providing landing and colocation services. Therefore, Grace Hopper gains access to the advanced interconnection and transmission capabilities of the Derio Communications Hub, unlocking new opportunities for companies connected to major international traffic hubs in Europe and beyond.
Furthermore, Telxius has implemented two direct backhauls to Madrid and Paris from Derio, extending the capacity of the Marea transatlantic cable to these two points. This means new opportunities for the companies connected to the main international traffic hubs in Europe and beyond.
Apart from this, there are three additional subsea cables from Telxius reaching Spain: SAT-III, connecting Africa’s west coast to Spain (Chipiona) and Portugal; Alpal-II, connecting Palma de Mallorca (Spain) with El Djamila (Algeria) and Est-Tet, from Estepona (Spain) to (Tetuan) Morocco.
What are the strategic priorities for the company as we head into 2022?
At Telxius we remain focused on enabling communications for organisations via one of the world’s largest Tier 1 IP networks, powered by one of the most extensive high capacity fibre optic subsea cable networks. As a result of increased infrastructure developments, new connectivity options and new partnerships, the Telxius network successfully links the US, Latin America, Europe and beyond.
The market where we operate is very dynamic and challenging. Our plan is to keep innovating and expanding our network as we have done so far, in order to boost international connectivity and increase the reliability of global communications. We want to be ready to fuel the huge demand for subsea capacity and to stay ahead of our customers’ needs. You will see us continuing to collaborate with key industry players from technology companies, telcos and OTTs to reinforce our market position and continue boosting our portfolio, always adapting our offer to the needs of our customers.
At Telxius, we have a continued commitment to improve the existing communications infrastructure, connect more geographies, partner with more and new strategic players and contribute to the development and enrichment of both new and existing communication hubs globally.
For more information on Telxius and their latest projects, please visit the Telxius website. You can also learn more by following Telxius on LinkedIn and connecting with Mario Martín here.
