Vodafone To Build Canary Island Extension Off Of 2Africa
June 15, 2021
Madrid – Vodafone and the Cabildo de Tenerife through Canalink, one of the companies belonging to the Technological Institute of Renewable Energies (ITER), announced today that they will connect the Canary Islands and the Iberian Peninsula with a new extension of the 2Africa submarine cable.
In a statement, they explain that this fiber optic cable will allow its own connection that will provide Vodafone and Canalink with the necessary capacity for the next decades for voice and data traffic, facilitating the best connectivity to the Canary Islands.
The investment project in this new infrastructure is around 12 million dollars, according to sources familiar with the process.
Vodafone and the Cabildo de Tenerife through Canalink each have a 50% stake in the Canary Islands section of this new deployment, which will be built by Alcatel Submarine Networks (“ASN”). Once available in late 2023, it will provide a seamless optical route between Telde in the Canary Islands and Continental Europe.
According to the participating groups, it is a state-of-the-art underwater system that will allow both entities to connect the Canary Islands with the Iberian Peninsula, enhancing the quality of the Vodafone network and providing its customers with an unmatched user experience. The driving companies say that 2Africa has been designed to improve resilience, maximize performance and reduce latency, greatly increasing the capacity, quality and availability of connectivity.
“The decision of Vodafone and Canalink to provide the Islands with their own infrastructure will transfer all the benefits of having their own latest generation cable to institutions, companies and private users of the islands, enabling the evolution of the network in the Islands towards 5G networks and ultra-fast broadband, ”say both partners.
Broadly speaking, the 2Africa consortium is an association of major African and global carriers that provides Internet access and capacity across much of the Middle East and Africa. In this way, the growth of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people is supported.
