MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay/Google Tannat cable system links with Brazil and Argentina

The cable is co-owned by Uruguay’s Antel and by Google. Active since 2018, the 2,000km system links Maldonado, Uruguay, to Praia Grande/Santos in Brazil

The Tannat cable system connecting Uruguay and Brazil by sea has now been officially extended to Argentina. The cable is co-owned by Uruguay’s state-run telco Antel and by Google. Active since 2018, the 2,000km system links Maldonado, near Montevideo in Uruguay, to Praia Grande/Santos in Brazil’s São Paulo state.

A landing point in Las Toninas, Argentina, was planned from the beginning, but only in July of this year was it authorized by Argentine regulator Enacom. This week, at an online event, Enacom, Google and Antel announced that the cable has finally been installed.

“Google began to develop submarine cables such as Tannat because they allow us to provide services with greater security and efficiency and allow us to have different routes that are always active,” Cristian Ramos, Google’s infrastructure development manager said, according to Enacom.

“In its first phase, Tannat united Brazil and Uruguay, but we always thought of connecting Argentina. Last week we managed to reach Las Toninas,” said the executive.

In Praia Grande, Tannat connects to the Monet Cable System, a 10,556km cable connecting Boca Raton, in the US, to Fortaleza and Praia Grande in Brazil.

Monet has been in operation since 2018 and is owned by Antel, Google, Angola Cables (an Angolan telecom company operating in the wholesale market) and Brazilian private telco Algar Telecom.

The system features a six fiber-pair cable and optical transmission technologies with an initial design capacity of at least 64Tb/s. With that, Tannat effectively provides Argentina with its first digital gateway to the US.

“This submarine cable allows Argentina's connectivity with the world to be expanded and enhances the communications ecosystem. Today we’re announcing the development of ICT technologies in the region,“ said Micaela Sánchez Malcolm, Argentine secretary of public innovation.

”This year was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and in this context countries have worked to bolster connectivity with public and private efforts to promote inclusion and reduce the digital divide. Tannat is a very important milestone in the development of communications in such a special context, but above all for the future,” she added.