Fortaleza, Angola Cables close LatAm-Africa cable deal

Authorities in Fortaleza, the capital of Brazil's northeastern Ceará state, have signed a deal with telecoms infrastructure firm Angola Cables for the installation of a submarine cable station and an integrated tier-3 data center.

In a statement on its official website, Fortaleza said the deal will allow the city "to become an international telecommunications hub."

In fact, Fortaleza already is a telecom hub. Due to its strategic location, the city is a landing point for all six existing international telecoms cables connecting Brazil to other parts of the world.

Several companies have set up or are currently setting up data centers there, as they wait for yet new cables to come, such as the 150km fiber optic cable being built by Brazilian data center firm Ascenty.

The South Atlantic Cables System (SACS) cable will run between the Angolan capital of Luanda and Fortaleza.

The project started out as a joint initiative with Brazil's state-run telco Telebras, but the firm later left the partnership, citing budgetary reasons.

Telebras is now focused on the European connection in partnership with Spanish broadband submarine communications provider Islalink, with which it formed a long-anticipated joint venture (JV) on July 1 to build and operate a route linking Fortaleza to Portuguese capital Lisbon.

Angola Cables is also involved in a second project: a US-LatAm cable called MONET. Google, Uruguay's state-run telco Antel and Brazilian carrier Algar Telecom are also part of that development.

Angola Cables CEO António Nunes said previously that, in addition to Fortaleza, a data center would also be set up in Luanda to serve the project.

The company plans to invest some 900mn reais (US$272mn) in the project, 72mn reais of which will be for works on the Brazil side, with 35mn reais spent in Fortaleza.

Fortaleza authorities estimate the city's GDP will grow by 0.2% annually thanks to this project.

The city also aims to create a tech park to take advantage of the city's attractiveness to ICT companies.