Telebrás, Brazil's state-owned service provider, has developed a new consortium that will build out a submarine cable linking the United States with the northeast Brazilian city of Fortaleza.
This project is part of a larger plan to improve Brazil's internet connectivity with four main regions: the United States, Europe, Africa and the Southern Cone.
It will create a consortium for each of the five planned network branches. Set to be operational by 2014, the proposed 24,000 km link has an initial budget of 1.8 billion reais (900 million).
"Right now we are talking to different companies in order to form a consortium for the US-Fortaleza connection--our next move in this project," Caio Bonilha, Telebrás president, said in a BN Americas article, adding that they are still looking at where it would house the U.S. cable.
Telebrás is not the only company interested in developing a Brazil-U.S. submarine cable link, however. Seaborn Networks, an emerging submarine player earlier this year announced a plan to build Seabras-1, is a 32 Tbps submarine cable that will provide what it says the first direct route between Sao Paulo and the United States.
Set to go live in 2014, the network has already attracted both Tata Communications and Sidera Networks as wholesale customers.
Larry Schwartz, CEO of Seaborn, said that its project has no relation to Telebras' network proposal and would not say if his company has spoken to the Brazil-based telco about establishing an alliance.
For more:
- BN Americas has this article
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