Telxius, Amazon Web Services Partner on transatlantic subsea cable MAREA

Telxius, the telecommunication infrastructure company of the Telefónica Group, announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed an IRU agreement for the use of a fibre pair on MAREA, the transatlantic submarine cable partially owned by Telxius.

MAREA provides high capacity, low latency, route diversity, and an open design subsea cable system, connecting Virginia Beach, United States of America, and Sopelana, Spain.

MAREA is the highest capacity submarine cable in the world. It provides the lowest latency route between the United States and Southern Europe, as well as a diverse path, further south than other transatlantic cables, to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Telxius opened MAREA for business in April 2018. With an initial system design capacity of 160 Terabits per second (Tbps), it has reached 200 Tbps in only six months thanks to its open and innovative design.

“We have developed a deep relationship with Amazon Web Services across the geographies we serve and are excited by their long-term commitment with the MAREA submarine system. As the market pioneer and leader in cloud IaaS for over 10 years, it’s encouraging to see AWS active in the subsea cable market. Cloud providers increased activity in the cable business is now a major driver of the submarine telecom industry,” says Rafael Arranz, Chief Operating Officer of Telxius, Cable Business.

In 2017, MAREA was the first subsea cable to land in Virginia Beach (USA), also a landing point for Telxius’ latest submarine project, BRUSA, connecting to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Both cables create a path that enables state-of-the-art connectivity between the USA, Latin America, Europe, and beyond.

Telxius is the infrastructure company of the Telefónica Group managing an international network of 87,000 km of high capacity fibre optic submarine cables. Our network consists of ten high capacity submarine fibre optic cables, including the highest capacity systems in the world, MAREA and BRUSA, both already open for business.

MAREA, a joint project with Microsoft and Facebook, is the highest-capacity submarine cable to ever cross the Atlantic. With its 11,000 km and cutting-edge technology, BRUSA links the United States and Brazil. SAM-1, PCCS, and UNISUR represent additional high capacity routes that link the United States and Latin America.

Telxius also has over 16,550 telecommunications towers in six countries, featuring one of the most extensive tower catalogues in the world, effectively serving customers as the leading tower company in Spain, Germany, Peru and Argentina and as a main provider in Brazil and Chile.