The Directorate-General for Natural Resources, Security and Maritime Services (DGRM) has granted the Title of Private Use of Maritime Space (TUPEM) for the developer of the EllaLink cable to start the installation of a connection to Morocco from the main backbone connecting Sines to Brazil.

The TUPEM was awarded under Decree-Law 38/2015, under the 25-year concession regime, contemplating in the Portuguese sea a deployment area of the submarine optical cable of 2,338 m2 and a protection area of 116,238 m2. It consists of the installation of a Branch of international submarine cable that will provide a connection to Casablanca, with a length of around 420 km, through a cable of two pairs of fibres allowing a bandwidth of 50 Terabit/s.

The works are at an advanced stage of preparation and the cable should begin to be installed during January, with a view to start operating in the first half of 2022. With this step, the promoter fulfils its planning for the important EllaLink low latency data link project, which is already operating between Sines and Fortaleza and with a branch to the island of Madeira, extending the interconnection network to different geographies, in this case North Africa.

The importance of connecting Portugal, through a growing network of latest generation data cables, is fundamental in positioning the country in the data economy, a matter which has been a priority in governmental action. It should be remembered that the EllaLink project includes the first direct connection between Europe and Brazil, through an ultra broadband cable, 6 thousand km long and representing an investment of 150 million Euros