Telecom infrastructures is a field that has progressed by leaps and bounds over the past few decades. Such advance has been mostly prompted by the users’ requests to have faster and more interconnected systems able to face the increase in data consumption. This has led to the creation of a higher number of data centers to store, manage and transfer these data. The advances achieved at the social scale are undeniable, but it is worth wondering how the Iberian Peninsula is accepting these changes, and at Televes we would like to give you some perspective on this technology.
It is, certainly, very interesting to analyze the factors favoring the Peninsula to become an essential core in the telecommunications realm. On the one hand, the Peninsula’s geographic area itself is key for international connectivity via submarine cables. Also, the fact that many major providers of cloud-based service platforms (Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, the recently incorporated Oracle…) have chosen our geographic area to develop their physical cloud zone, turning the Peninsula into a key spot for telecom services, as well as a place to exchange great amounts of traffic. All in all: the European hub of data centers.
This huge progress and investment in telecom infrastructures in both Spain and Portugal show a clear reality: the Peninsula is now a crucial place for the telecommunications between America, Europe and Asia. Many of the undersea cables that multinationals are currently rolling out serve as a point of connection with the land infrastructures located along Portuguese and Spanish coasts.
Nowadays, our coasts harbor 35 submarine cables that are connected to the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, the subsea cable built by Google has recently “landed” in Spain to connect New York and Bilbao as a terrestrial point of connection.
Actually, all these initiatives are mostly driven by the private sector, as many companies have detected a very interesting prospective market in the Peninsula. They also benefit from different public advantages, not so much as economic aids, but by reducing different administrative barriers to favor these deployments.
As an example of the capacity that it can offer, think about a data transmission capacity equivalent to nearly 7000 films of any streaming platform per second per pair of fiber – each undersea cable features several fiber filaments. There is no other way to offer similar transmission rates these days.
Both traffic demands and the need for connectivity will keep increasing, so these telecom infrastructures allow to meet those new demands.
If we compare the pros and cons of this type of solutions, there will definitely be more advantages than weaknesses. This is thus reflected by the great investments made by all those technology leaders in the sector.
Just to mention some negative aspects, its installation is not easy because very complex projects are required in terms of cabling, laying and production of every necessary element for its deployment. We must also bear in mind that the lifespan of this type of cabling is normally 25 years, although fewer technological renovations are needed compared with other solutions of the sector.
Once installed, the biggest enemies of this kind of installations are bottom trawls, anchors and earthquakes. We must take into account that, if a submarine cable breaks, all the processes required to get it fixed are somewhat complex.
Apart from transporting digital data via fiber, cables need to carry electrical energy to power all the optic amplification equipment that has to be placed every few kilometers. If failure occurs, the affected segment can be detected because, in addition, there has been a power cut. The way to fix these incidents will vary if the damaged cable is near the coast or in the open sea – the cable might be 10 kilometers deep.
All these connections established through undersea links normally have different routes ensuring the redundancy of the final services if malfunction arises in any of the routes.
Submarine lines reach the coast and connect to terrestrial transmission lines. These feature a lower capacity, as they do not need to add high quantities of data. They are, though, fitted with more fibers to reach every interconnection point, and linked to the data centers, where the greatest traffic interchange will take place.
Not only does it have to do with establishing connections among all those points, but also to perform it in almost real time, so leading businesses can continue to grow their core activities. Note that few milliseconds of latency can be critical for some applications. A few years ago, it was believed that big data centers located in areas contributing to their conditioning systems were the ideal solution; today, the most important aspect is their locations and proximity to the final user. They have become key elements for the development of the digital economy and data computing.
The challenge that lies ahead is the attempt to reach the sustainability of these installations, both for great centers and new ones to meet all these demands. We can only imagine the future as a great data network moving around under the oceans. Through it, there would be terrestrial infrastructures connecting with the great data centers, which in turn, through other branched networks reach every new data center that may be created near the final user. The Iberian Peninsula will be, undoubtedly, the main actor of this scenario that is now a reality.
Spain will invest heavily on infrastructures as established in the Spain Digital 2025 strategy – so will Portugal with its own Portugal Digital 2020 initiative. This will lead to an increase in public investment to reach a higher international connectivity and to support all these investments in new data centers in both territories. In turn, these plans have been backed by the UE decision in terms of approving a strategy for a more connected and global Europe.
Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, Roberto Sánchez, raised this question during his presentation on a report carried out by IDG Research (“Madrid, digital hub for southern Europe”): “(…) we are seeking these new factories and Spain to be the door to connectivity in Europe (…)”.
In conclusion, even if the Iberian Peninsula was already being considered to implement and improve even more the telecom infrastructures system at a global scale, the latest figures reveal that this trend will only go up, and our region will become an infrastructure focal point, bringing about more companies of the sector to perform their activities in our territory, eventually becoming a bridge between America, Europe, Africa and Middle East.