The German Internet exchange operator De-Cix (Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange) has installed an interconnection node in Barcelona that improves data exchange in Catalonia, thus offering 5.1 million people a maximum latency of one millisecond, the maximum estimated limit for the connected car or digitized industry.
The node has three data centers, two of them located in the Zona Franca of Barcelona and one in Sant Boi de Llobregat (Barcelona), in the facilities of BitNAP, Equinix and EdgeConneX.
The location in Barcelona, after an agreement with the Generalitat, has meant an investment of one million euros by the German operator. The CEO of De-Cix, Ivo Ivanov, stressed that this investment is not as important as the impact it has on the Catalan digital economy, because "it is necessary for this type of digital infrastructure to be as close as possible to people and businesses", for which "it acts as a magnet" for growth for the digital industry. In addition to gaining efficiency and security in the Internet connection.
According to data from the Department of Digital Policies of the Generalitat, as of today, there are already nearly 30 clients (network operators, Internet providers, content providers and business networks) that have started to exchange traffic in De-Cix Barcelona and to make use of the interconnection services and the cloud ecosystem offered by the company. Among the clients are global companies such as Google or Microsoft, as well as local entities such as the Centre de Telecomunicacions i Tecnologies de la Informació de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CTTI).
Ivo Ivanov pointed out that "Barcelona is among the top 10 economic centers in Europe by GDP and is also the most emerging digital hub thanks to its great potential in terms of submarine cable deployment. We are delighted to start our journey in Catalonia with a new exchange point that will boost the digitalization of Catalan organizations and companies, thanks to a direct and resilient connection."
In this same vein, the vice-president and minister of Digital Policies and Territory of the Generalitat, Jordi Puigneró, highlighted the importance of having a node with these characteristics available to the economic fabric and society, which adds to the neutral fiber optic network deployed by the Generalitat and the port for submarine network cables located in Sant Adrià de Besòs, thus completing the strategy for Catalonia to be digitally connected. Likewise, Puigneró announced that during the first half of 2022, the submarine cable port will receive the first Facebook cable, "which should allow Catalonia to have a direct intercontinental connection that it did not have before."
The submarine cable port of Sant Adrià will receive the first Facebook cable in the first half of 2022The agreement between De-Cix and the Generalitat also includes the creation of the Interconnection Academy training center, which will be developed together with the UPF and which will allow training professionals in telecommunications and digital infrastructures.
De-Cix is one of the largest neutral Internet interconnection points in the world. It operates in Europe, the Middle East, North America and Asia and has a network of 28 neutral data exchange points and more than 500 data centers, which allow it to provide service to all types of services and companies on the network.
The study The interconnection map of Southern Europe, carried out by De-Cix in collaboration with EllaLink and Interxion, highlights Barcelona's potential as an interconnectivity hub, with a 35% increase in bandwidth since 2016. With three interconnection points and its first international submarine cable in 2023, the city is prepared for the demands of reliability, speed and interconnection that infrastructures require to guarantee optimal performance of the network of networks with the growing demand for Internet access.