The first submarine cable landing station built in Catalonia, Barcelona Cable Landing Station, is now ready and awaiting the arrival of the first interconnection cables across the Mediterranean Sea. It is an infrastructure capable of accommodating a maximum of 8 wires submarine fiber optic before the end of the year it will already have two connected. It is located in Sant Adriá de Besòs, it has two floors and an area of 2,657 square metres.
In the building, which offers Tier 4 characteristics (maximum redundancy certification), eight rooms have been arranged for the placement of as many submarine cables, each with a capacity for 16 telecommunications racks. In addition, it houses a network control center, from which the cables will be permanently supervised and controlled. In this way, incidents will be avoided and your safety will be guaranteed. It also has four different access points to the main telecommunications infrastructures in Barcelona.
The Barcelona Cable Landing Station will also have a room for a data center, with an area of 380 square meters and capacity to house 160 racks of Internet operator systems. From this data center the submarine systems will be interconnected with the fiber and backhaul providers.
One of the cables that will be hooked to this station will be Medusa, the longest in the Mediterranean. It is 8,700 kilometers long and has been promoted by AFR-IX. In the coming years, apart from this cable and a second that will arrive before the end of 2022, another six international cables will have a connection to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station.
7 million euros have been invested in the construction and start-up of the station, although the global project, which includes the channeling works from the beach to the station, rises to a total of 10 million euros. The total capital has been contributed by the Catalan telecommunications company AFR-IX, which is also going to move its headquarters to the building.
Barcelona Cable Landing Station will also be the second open port in Spain and the first in Catalonia. This means that cables can access the station without restrictions. This will differentiate it from those that do have restrictions. These are generally built and operated by the company that owns the cable that hooks onto them. On the other hand, this station will serve as a high-connectivity bridge between the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
According to Norman Albi, CEO of AFR-IX, the station will be at full capacity in a few weeks, “With the arrival of the first cables, we became the gateway and link for the high-capacity fiber optic submarine cables that run through the Mediterranean. Taking into account that 98% of Internet traffic is carried out by submarine cable, Barcelona Cable Landing Station will be a key piece to gain connectivity with the world”.
