SANTIAGO – The Chilean government has awarded Huawei Marine the contract to build a subsea cable connecting with the country’s far south, the Chinese technology giant announced this week.
In a statement, Huawei Marine said it will partner with CTR (Comunicación y Telefonía Rural) to build the Fiber Óptica Austral (FOA), a 2,800km connection from Puerto Montt to the Patagonian cities of Caleta Tortel and Punta Arenas through to Puerto Williams in the far south.
Subtel, as a Vice Ministry of Telecommunication and Transportation Ministry of Chile, will invest in the new FOA to connect Las Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes regions.
CTR was awarded the contract to deploy and operate the network, while Huawei Marine will provide the end-to-end submarine cable solution.
The system has a design capacity of 16 Tb/s and a length of 2,800 kilometers. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.
Pamela Gidi, Chile’s vice minister of telecommunications, said the FOA project “will bring multiple benefits to Chile’s southern region”.
CTR’s CEO Patricio Morales said the new cable will connect to existing operators’ networks using 100Gbps transmission. The cable “will guarantee an adequate return on the capital expenditures made”, he added.
Mike Constable, chief executive of Huawei Marine, said: “The FOA cable will provide state-of-the-art connectivity to enhance the digital economy of the southern Chile region. Huawei Marine is proud to be selected as the system supplier and partner with CTR to successfully deliver the social and economic benefits that this network investment will facilitate.”
