EllaLink, DE-CIX Announce Strategic Partnership

EllaLink, the high-capacity and low latency fibre-optic submarine cable directly connecting Latin America and Europe, has taken another step towards creating a new and robust intercontinental ecosystem.

After having recently announced a partnership with Group IP Telecom, EllaLink now brings its partnership with DE-CIX, the world’s leading Internet Exchange (IX) operator, to life. With this partnership, DE-CIX will provide access to the largest carrier and data center neutral interconnection ecosystem in Southern Europe, through their IXs in Lisbon, Madrid, and Marseille.

EllaLink reinforces the importance of a new gateway to Europe and to the DE-CIX ecosystem, bringing connected networks all the way to the largest European IX, DE-CIX Frankfurt. Through the EllaLink connection between Latin America and Europe, the latency (response time in data transmission) between the two continents has been decreased by close to 50%, from +100 milliseconds to ca. 60 milliseconds compared to traditional routes.

Through this and the partnerships, companies are enabled to make content available on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean with increased security and low latency.

“As we operate in the B2B market, partnerships are key for the high-speed data transport between Fortaleza and Sines offered by the EllaLink cable to content-generating companies, whatever their application – games, financial systems, streaming – to maintain performance until it reaches other European and South American destinations,” says Vincent Gatineau, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at EllaLink.

In practice, each of the three partners contributes decisively to a better Internet experience for the end user. EllaLink provides the data transport, while IP Telecom enables connections from companies located in Brazil to the transport ecosystem and IXs in Europe, accessing unique Internet service and content provider networks, as well as enterprise networks, connected to DE-CIX.

Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International, explains how his company adds value to this ecosystem: “As latency is the new currency of our digitalized world, everything, everywhere, will be digital – and every millisecond counts when it comes to critical applications for different verticals, such as mobility, finance, and e-health. We are proud to bring the two strong business regions of Southern Europe and Latin America together through our partnership. These markets share many similarities when it comes to culture, language, and the demands on the markets. A year ago we said that we were going to build a new data traffic highway across the Atlantic Ocean together. Here we are now, ready to serve both continents – with customers like IP Telecom already enjoying the pleasure of low latency and secure interconnection.”

EllaLink and IP Telecom recently announced a partnership with NoPing, a high performance solution for latency improvement aimed at the online gaming segment – and the gaming segment is one of the most latency-sensitive, with required response times counted in milliseconds.

As the most commonly used routes between Brazil and Europe before the EllaLink cable traveled via the USA, with considerably higher latency, online game challenges between Brazilian and European players were unfeasible. With the new cable and the partnership with IP Telecom and NoPing, the latency reduction achieved during a game has been shown to be 30%.

Jefferson Carvalho, CEO of IP Telecom, uses the example of online games to show how this ecosystem formed by the three companies allows specific solutions to be offered for various types of customers. “Gaming users, for example, demand that the connection between the two continents has the lowest possible latency,” he explains. “But among our clients we have banks and other financial system institutions that require, besides low latency to trade on the stock market, for example, also the security of the direct connection between the two continents offered by the partnership, as these clients deal with personal data under their responsibility,” he adds.

Carvalho believes that, in the short term, the partnership between the three companies will generate two-way demand, in both Europe and Brazil. “With the structured partnership, the low latency offered by EllaLink's cable will help companies on both continents to identify opportunities offered by the connectivity market, which will be met with support from IP Telecom and DE-CIX,” he says.