Florida International University (FIU) is an important institution for the provision of connectivity between the United States and South America, including Brazil. Since 2001, it leads projects to interconnect the countries of the American continent, which contributes to increase the number and capacity of international links in the region. RNP is a partner network of FIU in Brazil, alongside the Academic Network at São Paulo, Ansp, which together share and operate the connections between both countries since 2009.

US National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on April 2015 the funding of the most recent of such projects, the AmLight Express, a high-performance interconnection between the cities of Fortaleza and Miami, which is intended to run until 2020. By the end of this year, Brazil will have a 100 Gbps communication channel with the United States, by means of a subsea cable, within the scope of the OpenWave project. “The total band capacity between the two countries will reach 140 Gbps, if we consider that the four current international channels between Miami and São Paulo will be maintained, which add up to 40 Gbps”, the RNP's R&D Director, Michael Stanton, states.

The forecast is for such capacity to take a leap forward in 2017, with the implementation of a new subsea cable between Brazil and the USA, the Monet, co-funded by Google. “When the Monet cable starts operating, the academic users will gain 600 Gbps, increasing the total capacity to 640 Gbps”, Stanton explains. This scenario offers the South American academic community conditions for greater collaboration in projects that demand a large network capacity.

In Monet’s case, one of the large cable capacity buyers will be the Large Scale Synoptic Telescope (LSST) project, which is building a new optic telescope in Chile. “The purchase of 600 Gbps capacity will serve not only for the LSST’s own use, but also to make an exchange with the academic networks in South America, to obtain other connections of its interest”, the director explains. “RNP is involved in such enterprise, within the context of the AmLight Express project, and will provide the LSST with connectivity between Brazil and Chile in exchange for connectivity between Brazil and the USA”, he complements.

Expansion of subsea cables in Brazil

The international connections provided by the FIU projects depend on the existence of subsea cables, which started to replace the old satellite connections. The current generation of cables started in the 2000s, with three initiatives connecting Brazil to the United States: South American Crossing, South America-1 and GlobeNet. FIU uses in its projects mainly the first two cables, which support connections of up to 10 Gbps.

According to Stanton, we are currently witnessing a new phase of subsea cables expansion. There will be at least two new cables between the United States and Brazil by 2017: Monet, funded by Angola Cables, Google, Algar Telecom (Brazil) and Antel (Uruguay), among São Paulo, Fortaleza and Miami; and Seabras-1, by Seaborn Networks, connecting São Paulo, Fortaleza and Nova York.

Other new subsea cables connecting Brazil and forecast to go into operation in 2017 are eulaLink, connecting Fortaleza to Lisbon, going through Cape Verde, Canary Islands and Madeira; and Sacs, by Angola Cables, between Fortaleza and the Angolan capital, Luanda.

“eulaLink will provide the first high-capacity connection between Brazil and Europe and there is a perspective of good service to academic works through the acquisition of capacity by said networks and governments in Europe and America, including by RNP”, Stanton states.

Sacs will provide the first high-capacity connection between Brazil and Africa. “All of these cables fundamentally provide the infrastructure for us to be able to build connections to academic and commercial networks in other countries and continents”, he concludes.

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