wiredInUSA September 2018

Education links

The Building Europe Link to Latin America (BELLA) consortium has signed an agreement with EllaLink to deploy an underwater fiber optic cable between Europe and Latin America. The European commission is investing around €26.5 million, in addition to the consortium’s public stakeholders. One of the group’s aims is to guarantee a dedicated section of the cable to link European and Latin American research and education networks, funded by €10 million under the Horizon 2020 program from the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT); and €8.5 million of funding from the Directorate- General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) under the Copernicus program.

in Latin America, with funding of €8 million under the regional Development Cooperation Instrument from the Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO). The BELLA consortium comprises 11 European and Latin American research and education networks from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, together with the regional networks RedCLARA, the Latin American research and education network, and GÉANT, the pan-European research and education network. The subsea cable is scheduled to be in operation between Portugal and Brazil in 2020, with plans to extend to both Latin Americaandwithin theEU. It will strengthen links between the two continents in a step towards creating an EU–Latin America common research area.

Another main aim is to extend the high capacity to academic research networks

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wiredInUSA - September 2018