Arelion expands in Mexico with new Monterrey-Querétaro route

Swedish connectivity provider Arelion, formerly known as Telia Carrier, further expanded its network in Mexico with a new fiber route connecting the northern city of Monterrey to the datacenter hub of Querétaro.

The DWDM optical-powered cable, all of which is underground, should provide wholesale and enterprise customers with high-capacity transmission services and direct access to Arelion’s local ecosystem of cloud, content and security applications, the company said in a release.

This section complements Arelion's existing US-Monterrey route, enhancing cross-border cloud, media and gaming data transit. In the US, the network reaches markets such as northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, Dallas and Atlanta.

“This network expansion continues Arelion’s ongoing investment in Mexico to support the country’s cloud, information communications technology (ICT) and manufacturing sectors through low-latency connectivity services,” the company stated.

In Mexico, Arelion’s networks provide connectivity to Oracle Cloud region sites in Querétaro and Monterrey, for example.  

Market estimates are that, by 2029, Querétaro will be home to roughly 15% of Mexico's total datacenter footprint, with 73 datacenters. 

“We're seeing immense demand for reliable, high-capacity connectivity in the market, so these underground DWDM routes are crucial for supporting Querétaro’s growing cloud, content and Artificial Intelligence applications,” Edison De Leon, regional director of LatAm & Caribbean at Arelion, said in the release. 

“Our new routes bring terabit-scale wave services and localized content to a booming market, enabling further economic development in one of Mexico’s largest technology hubs."

FOOTPRINT

Arelion currently operates nine points-of-presence (PoPs) in Mexico. 

These are in the datacenters of Neutral Networks (San Luis Potosí and Pabellón M), Equinix (MX1 and MO1), KIO Networks (QRO, MEX2 and Mex 5 sites), HostDime (Guadalajara’s GDL) and AiTelecom (Mérida site).

In effect, Neutral Networks is now expected to compete directly with Arelion in cross-border interconnectivity. 

Last week, Neutral announced the creation of the JV SierraIG with US firm SummitIG specifically to build underground fiber infrastructure, starting in Querétaro and Monterrey.

According to Arelion, in March it closed a partnership with Telxius for connectivity to Telxius’ landing stations in Boca Raton and Jacksonville, Florida. Arelion will have PoPs at each Telxius landing station, benefitting data offload out of and into Latin America.

Last month, Arelion and its main optical solution provider Ciena said they successfully completed what is deemed the world's first 1.6Tbps wavelength data transmission in a live network field trial. The solution used was Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme.

The trial occurred at Arelion’s 470km route between PoPs in Ashburn, Virginia (Equinix) and Telxius’ Virginia Beach cable landing station.