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Shaping Europe’s digital future
Success story | Publication

EllaLink - connectivity between Europe and Latin America

EllaLink, a fibre-optic submarine cable linking Europe and Latin America, was granted a special Jury Broadband Award 2022.

Illustration of the optical submarine cable linking Europe and Latin America

EllaLink

EllaLink is the owner and operator of an advanced optical platform offering secure high-capacity connectivity on a unique low-latency transatlantic route between Latin America and Europe. Latency is how much time it takes for a data packet to travel from one designated point to another. EllaLink has the lowest latency of less than 60 milliseconds round-trip delay time between Portugal and Brazil.

The cable was launched in 2021 and is now providing a direct-data route between the two continents with landing points in Barcelona, Fortaleza, Funchal, Lisbon, Madrid, Marseille, Praia, São Paulo, Sines and Rio de Janeiro. The EllaLink system is being built with state-of-the-art technology initially offering 100 Tbps of capacity over four direct routes between Europe and Brazil, connecting the island of Madeira and the Archipelago of Cabo Verde as well, with future extensions planned to Morocco, Canary Islands, French Guiana, Mauritania and South Brazil. The primary focus of EllaLink is to offer a high-speed and affordable connection serving the growing needs of the Latin American and European markets.

The Ellalink transatlantic connection was inaugurated at the 2021 Digital Assembly It is co-funded by the EU Bella programme, which looks to provide European and Latin American research and education with better opportunities for sharing research and exchanging data.  

Unique characteristics

Since the deployment of the very first submarine cable system, the Atlantic has been a challenging and competitive market to operate in. The ingenuity and foresight of the EllaLink team has led to a different approach to the traditional one, both in terms of the choice of route and landing points, as well as partners and the way of doing business. Not only will the EllaLink system bring the continents of Europe and Latin America closer together, but it will also open up a new corridor between China and Latin America.

Results and Impact

The latency results shown by technical tests confirm the reduced latency of less than 60 milliseconds from Fortaleza, in Brazil, to Sines, in Portugal. This decreased latency will have a big impact on the global IP market. Reducing latency improves network performance, a critical factor for content providers, cloud-computing companies and financial firms. While reductions in delay of milliseconds may appear trivial, it can have a significant impact on the profitability of trading operations, making the 50% saving of round-trip delay between Madrid and Fortaleza a huge success story.

For more information visit the project website.