MADRID, Spain, May 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EllaLink today announces receipt of an Intent to Award for a €25 million contract with GÉANT and RedCLARA on behalf of the BELLA Consortium. This award is for a Capacity Purchase on the EllaLink submarine cable, a new state-of-the-art transatlantic system.
The EllaLink system, providing 72 terabits of telecoms capacity between Spain, Portugal and Brazil will be ready for service in 2020. The new system will enable low latency, data privacy and high capacity transmission for a broad range of customers between the major financial and population centres of Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Linking Data Centres in Madrid, Lisbon, Fortaleza and São Paulo, EllaLink will provide express submarine connectivity between Europe and Latin America, and offer the first ever direct fibre pairs between the two continents.
The Intent to Award decision by the BELLA Consortium completes a two-year public tender process involving a number of European operators, culminating in an agreement, and publication of this Intent to Award decision. The parties will now complete the structured BELLA procurement process, prior to concluding final contract signatures.
Alfonso Gajate, Chairman and Founder of EllaLink, states, “We are excited to reach this key milestone in the development of the EllaLink submarine cable. With this significant commitment, we welcome the BELLA consortium as partners and Anchor Customer in the project. We look forward to opening this exciting new route between these two continents, and to contribute to the success of their further growth together.”
Through the BELLA Consortium the new capacity will significantly strengthen the links between the Research and Education Networks in the two continents, enabling new collaborative activities between the scientific and academic communities in Europe and Latin America and supporting innovation and knowledge-sharing.
For more information please contact media@ellalink.es.
About EllaLink
EllaLink is a new submarine cable connecting Brazil and Europe linking the major hubs of Sao Paulo and Fortaleza with Lisbon and Madrid. The system is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks and will be one of the new generation coherent submarine cables, offering 72 terabits of capacity over 4 fibre pairs. EllaLink has secured the landing sites in Santos (Brazil), Fortaleza (Brazil) and Sines (Portugal), and is scheduled to be Ready for Service in 2020. For more information please contact media@ellalink.es.
About BELLA
BELLA (Building the Europe Link with Latin America) provides for the long-term interconnectivity needs of European and Latin American research and education communities by procuring and deploying a long-term Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) for spectrum on a direct submarine cable between the two regions, and deploying a 100Gbps-cabable research and education network across Latin America.
BELLA is implemented by a Consortium of the Regional Research and Education Networks GÉANT (Europe) and RedCLARA (Latin America) and the National Research and Education Networks of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Funding for BELLA is provided by the European Commission (DG-CONNECT, DG-DEVCO and DG-GROWTH) and Latin America NRENs.
About GÉANT
GÉANT is Europe’s leading collaboration on network and related infrastructure and services for the benefit of research and education, contributing to Europe's economic growth and competitiveness. The organisation develops, delivers and promotes advanced network and associated e-infrastructure services, and supports innovation and knowledge-sharing amongst its members, partners and the wider research and education networking community.
For more information, visit www.geant.org
About RedCLARA
RedCLARA is the Latin American Research and Education Network, regional leader and promotor of collaboration and development in education, science and innovation, by means of its e-infrastructure and services tailored for its community needs. RedCLARA provides regional interconnections and connections to the world through its international links and promotes the development of tools, services and research projects to empower regional scientific and educational development and the collaboration within Latin American R&E institutions and of Latin America and the rest of the world with an important focus on less developed regions.
For more information, please visit: www.redclara.net
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