50% increase in network performance between data centers in Brazil, Portugal and Spain
Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the world’s digital infrastructure company™, and EllaLink announced the first-ever high-capacity subsea cable system between Europe and Latin America is in full operation. Delivered by EllaLink to Equinix’s International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers—SP4 in São Paulo, LS1 in Lisbon and MD2 in Madrid—the new system provides a 50% increase in network performance between data centers in Brazil, Portugal and Spain when compared to routes that had to previously transit through North America. Reducing latency is a critical factor for content providers, cloud companies and financial firms, where a delay of a few milliseconds can impact the profitability of trading operations.
EllaLink selected Equinix due to the company’s expertise in providing state-of-the-art subsea infrastructure and its access to dense, rich ecosystems of networks, clouds, financial and IT service providers. Equinix serves as an interconnection partner in more than 40 of the current subsea cable projects.
Subsea cables are key to the internet and global connectivity, as 99% of intercontinental traffic crosses a subsea cable with less than one percent of the remaining traffic carried through satellite systems.1 The global subsea cable market is expected to be valued at $22 billion by 2025, more than doubling from 2019. A significant portion of this growth is in cables connecting Latin America to the rest of the world.2
Highlights / Key Facts:
- Spain and Portugal are important gateways to Brazil and the rest of South America for many European markets. As the capital of Portugal, Lisbon is at the center of industry, government and commerce. It represents an important international connectivity hub, with subsea cables connecting the Iberian Peninsula from Lisbon to Africa and South America. Spain is also an essential hub on the global connectivity map due to its physical location between Africa, Mediterranean Europe and Northern Europe, and its strong cultural connection to Latin America. 5G deployments, the ongoing tech boom and growth in the use of data, telecom subscriptions and internet connections between the two continents are increasing bandwidth capacity requirements.
- The subsea cable momentum on Platform Equinix® has accelerated worldwide as digital transformation has increased globally. Equinix’s footprint of more than 230 IBX data centers in 65 global markets across 27 countries provides the metro edge points of presence (PoPs) required to deliver low-latency interconnection for transporting increasing volumes of internet traffic. At Equinix, subsea cable owners/operators can deploy cable landing stations that open gateways between continents and interconnect businesses around the world.
- According to the fifth annual Equinix Global Interconnection Index (GXI Vol. 5), overall interconnection bandwidth, the measure of private connectivity for the transfer of data between organizations, is forecast to reach 21,485+ terabits per second (Tbps), or 85 zettabytes, per year by 2024, representing a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44%. This growth is aligned with the increased demand for the digital infrastructure needed to bring more businesses online, facilitate electronic integration with partners and supply chains, and reach more people in distributed hybrid work environments.
Quotes:
- Diego Matas, Chief Operating Officer, EllaLink
“Offering one-hop connections between Latin America and Europe with a 60ms latency is a game changer from a transatlantic latency perspective. During these last months, EllaLink continued working directly with Equinix in order to secure carrier-neutral connections from our PoP locations in Equinix’s data centers and we are now enabling our customers to directly access the rich ecosystems of networks, clouds, and financial and IT service providers that Equinix hosts.” - Michael Ourabah, Chief Executive Officer, BSO
“BSO delivers low-latency, high- performance, highly available, private cloud infrastructure to customers in the capital markets sector. Our work to connect those in emerging markets with other trading networks around the globe has garnered significant results for the regions, even at this early stage. Working with Equinix and EllaLink, we feel we are well-placed to ensure that firms who want to access the Brazilian market have everything they need.” - Jim Poole, Vice President, Business Development, Equinix
“More data is being produced and processed today than ever before—and almost every byte of data that moves over the internet touches a subsea cable. As a result, organizations require access to high-capacity, low-latency networks capable of connecting them to data centers across oceans with the highest levels of reliability. This is where Equinix plays a critical role and offers a huge advantage to customers. Any user of a subsea cable network that lands inside one of our global data center termination points has instant, low-latency access to a host of industry ecosystems inside Equinix.”
Additional Resources
- EllaLink and BSO launch strategic partnership to develop financial markets between Europe and Latin America
- Equinix 5G and Edge Tech Development Center Drives Innovation
- Addressing the impact of latency – How low can you go?
1 ITIF, “Submarine Cables: Critical Infrastructure for Global Communications,” April 2019
2 Norton Rose Fulbright, “Financing subsea cables in Latin America,” June 16, 2020
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