SPLANG, a component of Collectivité Territoriale de Guyane (CTG) and its associated municipalities in French Guiana, has tasked EllaLink with the creation of an 8,000 km submarine link. A momentous achievement, EllaLink represents the first optic fibre submarine cable furnishing direct and high-capacity connectivity between Latin America and Europe. This assignment also dictates the construction of an additional 2,100km cable extension to the already established EllaLink cable.
The nascent submarine offshoot will reach the shores of Cayenne, French Guiana, furnished with 2 fibre pairs. Alcatel Submarine Networks will take the reins in this construction process, utilising top-tier optical technologies like the ROADM WSS branching unit. This technology ensures direct connectivity, devoid of any regeneration, from French Guiana to Europe with an round-trip delay (RTD) latency of less than 80 ms. Additionally, this setup will facilitate direct connections from French Guiana to Fortaleza, Brazil.
French Guiana’s standing as one of the nine outermost regions of the European Union and a critical strategic area hosting the Arianne Space Rockets’ launch pads significantly elevates its importance. The geographical isolation from Continental Europe inherently poses hurdles for the region to readily access a direct and secure European connection. In light of this, the project sees support from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program, echoing its importance and alignment with the European Commission Digital Gateway’s robust and secure infrastructure priorities.
The aim of this infrastructural enhancement is to safeguard French Guiana’s connection to the global network through a completely diverse and low-latency connection. With this new linkage, it will provide French Guiana the latitude to vouchsafe the sovereignty of its infrastructure to the paramount space and research industry established in French Guiana via the presence of the Centre National d’ Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the Guiana Space Centre.
