On the beach of Sant Adrià de Besòs, a few meters from Les Tres Xemeneies, everything is ready for the first high-capacity submarine fiber optic cables to arrive. The Barcelona Cable Landing Station, the first neutral and international landing station in Catalonia, has just been inaugurated, an essential infrastructure considering that 98% of Internet data traffic circulates under the sea. With capacity to host up to eight cables from Africa, the Mediterranean, and Asia, the Barcelona digital port is the second of its kind in Spain, after another located in Bilbao.
With an investment of 10 million euros, the Catalan company AFR-IX telecom, an infrastructure and telecommunications operator that provides Internet access in more than 50 African countries, has developed facilities that can be used by any telecommunications company. The company led by Miguel Ángel Acero and Norman Albi will operate as an independent manager that grants the concession of use to third parties on a rental basis. Until now, with the exception of Bilbao, submarine cable stations in Spain were developed and managed by a single company.
Operators docking in Sant Adrià will bring their data and decide whether to host it in a data center ---infrastructures where this type of information is stored and processed on a large scale--- or continue their journey to the United States. The second option, in addition to being the cheapest for those transporting data, represents an opportunity for economic development for the metropolitan locality.
Precisely, the construction of a data center very close to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station by Interxion has already been announced, a European provider of data centers integrated into the American company Digital Realty. This and other planned projects, such as Aquila's in Cerdanyola del Vallès, in the Parc de l'Alba, will serve to continue positioning Barcelona as a strategic location for data centers and will reinforce it as a technological hub.
After two years of works, the Barcelona Cable Landing Station arrives to decongest submarine cable traffic in the Mediterranean, highly concentrated in the port of Marseille, which currently has about 15 connections. Unlike the French landing station, the CEO of AFR-IX telecom, Norman Albi, points out that the one in Sant Adrià de Besòs will have a corridor of submarine cables to make the entry more orderly.
Likewise, the Barcelona infrastructure will form a tandem with the Basque one, just as Marseille does with Bordeaux, thus allowing easier access to the American continent than if one had to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. Albi also highlights the diversity of telecommunications operators and data centers in Catalonia, with none dominating the market, unlike what happens in France.
The first cables, before the end of the year
The first cables to land at the Barcelona Cable Landing Station are expected before the end of the year. The agreements for the use of the fiber optic cable node have been established internationally with a consortium of several telecommunications operators and with an infrastructure manager.
The third cable to arrive in Sant Adrià will be Medusa, built by AFR-IX telecom itself and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), part of the Nokia group. It is expected to be the longest in the Mediterranean, with 8,700 kilometers, and will serve to connect nine countries in Africa and Europe, through landing points located in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, France, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, and Egypt. It has an investment of 326 million euros. The first phase of this project, according to Albi, is planned for between July and December 2024 with the connection of Lisbon, Barcelona, and Marseille.
According to AFR-IX telecom executives, the Barcelona Cable Landing Station is expected to reach full capacity by 2027. For now, the Catalan company will move its headquarters from 22@ to the new digital port. With a staff of over 100 employees, most of them in African countries, about 40 workers will be based in Sant Adrià de Besòs. With the investment already executed in the metropolitan area, the company plans to go public when the market is calm.