Hemisphere Cable’s WASACE 1 submarine network to connect Europe with Latin America
Hemisphere Cable Co., S.L. of Spain via Tenerife has announced it plans to build a submarine network that will connect Europe with Latin America. NEC will supply the necessary technology for the submarine cable, dubbed WASACE 1. As the name implies, WASACE 1 is the first of several planned undersea cable Hemisphere Cable hopes to deploy.
WASACE 1 will connect Fortaleza, Brazil; the Canary Islands; and Seixal, Portugal, with additional branches in Cape Verde, Madeira, and Casablanca. The submarine network will feature eight fiber pairs with an aggregate capacity of 144 Tbps; each pair will have an upgradeable initial capacity of 18 Tbps. Hemisphere Cable expects the submarine cable to be ready for service in the second quarter of 2021.
System construction will include the establishment of a network operations center (NOC) and a data center in the Canary Islands that Hemisphere plans to use to launch other submarine networks that will connect to West Africa, the Mediterranean, and North America. These plans include WASACE 2, an undersea cable that will run from the Canary Islands to South Africa that Hemisphere Cable plans to announce before the middle of next year with a completion target of the second half of 2021.
“HCC is delighted to invest initially for the WASACE 1 system, opening a new era in the connection between Europe and Latin America. It will do so by offering low-latency communication services by providing a direct route between these continents without going through the U.S.,” explained Luis M. Jara, CEO of Hemisphere Cable Co. (HCC). “In addition, the establishment of the new data center in the Canary Islands, together with the construction of the WASACE 2 cable, means, for HCC, a major milestone within the goal of becoming the main interconnection hub facing and uniting Africa, Latin America, the Mediterranean region, Europe, and the United States”
The new effort is a reboot of a previous WASACE project, in which the WASACE Cable Co. earlier this decade envisioned a network of submarine cables that would link four continents (see “WASACE plans submarine cable linking four continents”). That effort got as far as the beginning of equipment vendor selection before it ceased (see "WASACE shops for undersea cable"). WASACE Cable Co. was headed by Ramon Gil-Roldan, who is founder and president of HCC.
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher
Stephen Hardy has covered fiber optics for more than 15 years, and communications and technology for more than 30 years. He is responsible for establishing and executing Lightwave's editorial strategy across its digital magazine, website, newsletters, research and other information products. He has won multiple awards for his writing.
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