Building Europe Link to Latin America Fernando Liello. Thomas Fryer | BELLA Consortium | June 2016 | TNC2016

Impact of Broadband on Inclusion and Development "While improving rapidly, penetration rates and broadband prices remain highly unequal around the world, with developing countries still with significantly less penetration and higher broadband prices both internally and for external exchange of data. It is clear that the volume and the quality of ICT use are closely linked to the pricing factors – with higher ICT volume and lower prices, local user generated content (“local content”) grows quickly, signalling growth in economic and social transactions that are key to value creation, cultural exchange, and social development", in Capturing Digital Dividends and Closing Digital Divides, OECD Report, November “A growing body of evidence suggests that broadband can boost GDP and income, helping combat poverty and hunger. Research by the World Bank suggests that a 10% increase in broadband penetration could boost GDP by 1.38% in low- and middle-income countries. Country case studies suggest a strong impact of fixed and/or mobile broadband in individual countries, depending on their economic structure”, The State of Broadband, ITU, September 2012"

ELLA: The Feasibility Study In March 2011, the European Commission awarded the Project ELLA (Number ) to a consortium lead by GARR and RedCLARA to study the feasibility of building a Submarine Telecommunications Cable to connect directly Europe to Latin America. The project addressed the lack of Direct Telecommunications infrastructure linking Latin America and Europe produced by a 20 years of non existing investment to serve the telecomunication needs between both continents. This lack of investment has lead to a strategic dependence on a single route through North America which delays growth in services and maintains high prices that are in average 20 times those observed in the North Atlantic route. The project showed that with an average increase in traffic of nearly 32% per year, there is market for the deployment of new submarine cables. Furthermore, 20% of the traffic at least has Europe as final destination, hence a submarine cable connecting directly Latin America and Europe makes sense, not only technically but also economically feasible. 3

Wholesale Broadband in LA

Projecting the average growth Projecting the actual average academic traffic plus the Commodity Internet traffic leads to demands growing at least over 4-5 Tbps in the 25 years time frame.

Current Situation of Submarine Cables Telegeography

Europe – Latin America Cooperation There is a fairly intense and growing collaboration in: –Basic sciences (CRIA, Max Planck, etc) –Applied sciences (CGIAR) –Social Sciences –Industrial R&D –Open Access There are many advanced laboratories in Europe that interest the LA community: –Structure of matter (CERN,...)CERN –Plasma energy generation (ITER,...)ITER –Molecular Biology (EMBL,...)EMBL –Instrumentation (NOVA,...)NOVA –Application-oriented R&D (Frauenhofer Gesellschaft,...)Frauenhofer Gesellschaft

Enabling Unconstrained Access to European Facilities Cerro Paranal ALMA La Silla Pierre Auger Observatory E-ELT

CELAC-EU Summit, January 2013 Santiago, Chile ACTION PLAN Key Area #1: Science, research, innovation and technology, Cooperation Activities and Initiatives: … –Item e. Strengthened the integration of both regions in the Information Society and … through an increase of interconnectivity between the education and research networks within and between regions and enhance access to and use of resources. –Item n. Reinforced private and public sector efforts for the improvement of the interconnection of education and research networks through the enhancement of transatlantic links, including through new optic fibre cables.”...

BELLA: Guaranteing Long–term unconstrained Capacity between the two regions (EU and LA) to the benefit of not-for-profit activities General Objective –Eliminate any present or foreseeable bottleneck in the connectivity between European and Latin American countries to ease the unconstrained exchange of data and services with strong impact on the digital divide between the two regions. Specific Objectives 1.To secure long term high bandwidth telecommunications capacity in a new direct LA- EU telecommunications submarine cable 2.The make possible to RedCLARA to guarantee full and equal access to the LA-EU capacity to the LA NRENs. This will imply to upgrade RedCLARA's infrastructure in South America to deploy a full optical network that will generate sinergies with the NRENs of the region, increasing effectivenes and capilarity. 3.To guarantee, through GEANT, full access to the LA-EU capacity for the European NRENs. 4.To make possible, via extended competition, to the NREN community of Latin America the access to Commodity Internet at significantly lower prices than those currently available in the region.

BELLA Network Layout

Expected Results R1 40% of the spectrum of a fibre pair in a submarine cable linking directly South America and Europe for the exclusive use of the academic community and the not- for-profit organizations in both continents. R2 A complete fibre path owned by RedCLARA and its partner NRENs going from Fortaleza (*) in Brazil all the way to Bogota in Colombia and Cucuta at the Border with Venezuela connecting Brazil-Argentina-Chile-Perú-Ecuador and Colombia with access points at the border of Uruguay and Venezuela. R3 An Optical RedCLARA Backbone synergetic with the LA NRENs to enhance capillarity inside each country. R4 GEANT and RedCLARA networks fully and seamlessly interconnected at optical as well as IP level. R5 Internet Commodity price gap between Latin America and Europe is reduced by a factor of 4 or more. (*) Work is under way to include French Guiana tn this network

Impacts Improvement of the research collaboration (better connectivity of the Latin American research and education network RedCLARA to the European GEANT network). Increased capillarity of research and education networks in Latin America leading to a more even access to the Internet and advanced networks throughout all the region. It will stimulate broadband deployment in South America leading to lower prices for end-user and regional inclusive growth, facilitating commercial transactions and investment operations

The BELLA Consortium Partners –Europe DFN (Germany), FCT (Portugal), GARR (Italia), GÉANT Limited, GEANT Association, RedIRIS (Spain), RENATER (France) –Latin America CEDIA (Ecuador), RENATA (Colombia), REUNA (Chile), RNP (Brazil), RedCLARA

Purposes To establish an alliance aimed at: –Completing the Latin American fibre network for R&E for the use of Latin American NRENs –Obtaining, maintaining and managing an intercontinental submarine cable telecommunications capacity to connect the research, academic and not for profit communities of Europe and Latin America during a period of 25 years or more. –Facilitating further projects to connect other countries in the region

BELLA Implementation Phase It is the period while the submarine cable (estimated Q3 2018) and the Latin American networks reach their RFS dates (estimated Q2 2019). This period is estimated to last 3 years starting July 1, 2016, until the sub- projects implementing the Specific Objectives are closed.

Specific Objectives of the Implementation Phase SO1: To obtain an Irrevocable Right of Use of 40 Optical Channels of one cable pair in a direct submarine cable system between Fortaleza (FLS) and Lisbon (Lisbon POP). SO2: To deploy an upgradeable 100 Gbps link between GÉANT and RedCLARA to serve the R&E communities of both continents SO3: To complete RedCLARA's Dark Fiber Network in LA and deploy a 100 Gbps upgradeable network linking Fortaleza (Brazil) to Bogotá (Colombia) through Buenos Aires, Santiago and Guayaquil, alternatively/additionally linking Foraleza to Cartagena/Barranquilla.