Subsea digital infrastructure provider Telxius is continuing to enable secure and resilient access to the world’s digital hubs, with a strong focus on boosting communications in Latin America. Its ecosystem accelerates how enterprises, OTTs, carriers and service providers connect their customers, partners and platforms across the globe. Rafael Arranz, COO at Telxius, explains how the company is enhancing connectivity from Latin America and providing a global foundation for digital innovation.
How is Telxius helping to meet growing communications demands on a global scale?
Submarine cable operators have to add value on top of their infrastructure investments to serve the growing needs of hyperscalers, other OTTs and carriers. A-to-B connectivity is no longer enough to keep up with today’s demands for fast and seamless communications no matter the location.
That’s why Telxius combines next-generation subsea cables with terrestrial backhaul systems and digital hubs like the company’s Derio Communications Hub near Bilbao in northern Spain. Such a set-up unleashes the full capacity of the networks that connect to them and offers a one-stop shop for a wide range of IP, capacity, colocation and security services.
We have a global network of high-capacity fibre-optic submarine cables that spans more than 82,000km, offering diverse, low-latency communications to our customers. Not only do we provide this, but our tier-1 IP network also provides direct connectivity to the internet, with extensive coverage around the globe.
We keep growing our business to better serve the needs of our customers across continents. The strength of our company is proved by the recent announcement that saw Telefónica and Spanish investment firm Pontegadea increase their stakes in Telxius to 70% and 30%, respectively.
What are the main recent activities that Telxius has been carrying out in Latin America?
Latam is one of the most unique and diverse regions in the world, with accelerating digitalisation and growth of local digital economies. Our developments across the region are driven by growing customer demand and new opportunities to proactively support local and global enterprises, service providers, hyperscalers and other OTTs. We’re continually evolving our capabilities to better serve the needs of our customers in this fast-growing market.
In particular, Telxius recently announced the planned rollout of a brand-new next-generation submarine cable, Tikal, a joint project with America Móvil. This will bridge the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, connecting Puerto Barrios in Guatemala with Boca Raton in the US, plus an additional possible landing point in Cancun, Mexico. Featuring an initial estimated capacity of 190Tbps, the cable serves a key route in the Caribbean with the highest levels of service, reliability and security.
What will this new submarine cable mean for the Latin American market?
In short, higher-performance connectivity with a better experience for end users. Tikal will be the highest-capacity undersea cable serving this route, enabling the region to cope better with the growing communications demands of the digital age.
This will be our seventh new next-generation cable since 2018, in addition to Brusa, Mistral, Tannat, Junior, Marea and Dunant. This all forms a multi-terabit, robust set of modern subsea cables fully serving the Americas and Europe, while enhancing the traditional routes that Telxius has on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tannat connects Santos in Brazil with Las Toninas in Argentina, adding to the Brusa and Junior cables on the Atlantic coast of Latin America. This delivers the most modern and diverse end-to-end connectivity between the US, Brazil and Argentina.
Mistral is, meanwhile, a next-generation high-capacity fibre-optic submarine cable that runs along the Pacific coast, linking Puerto San José in Guatemala with Valparaíso in Chile.
These systems, together with the rest of the company’s cables in the region – including SAm-1, PCCS and Unisur – are enabling businesses to meet today’s enterprise needs in Latin America.
How does Telxius connect the Americas to Europe and beyond?
Telxius is a leader in transatlantic routes linking the US and Europe, through its next-generation subsea cables Marea and Dunant. The transatlantic route is one of the world’s busiest, and the company is playing a key role in channelling the enormous growth in data and content needs between the two regions.
Our Derio Communications Hub in Bilbao, which is fully integrated with the Marea and Grace Hopper subsea cables, is booming. These facilities unleash the full potential of the cables that connect to it, transporting traffic directly to key communications hubs in Europe such as Madrid, Paris, London, Frankfurt or Marseille.
In fact, we have developed direct terrestrial backhaul routes to these key hubs, extending the capacity of the Marea transatlantic cable. This helps to position Spain as one of the main European communications hubs. With these backhauls, we’re enabling a direct Paris-to-Madrid route, with our two transatlantic cables fully connected.
Furthermore, Telxius connects Europe with North, Central and South America, thanks to the Marea, Dunant and Brusa axis. They connect at our Virginia Beach CLS campus and have direct access to Ashburn – known as the data centre capital of the world – as well as Richmond.
Customers who choose Telxius benefit from high-availability, low-latency networking, as well as seamless connectivity to digital hubs where they can access a wide range of advanced cable services. We are adding value on top of subsea cable infrastructure and giving customers comprehensive, end-to-end digital infrastructure.
