Lisbon: An Emerging Subsea Telecom Hub

Marseille was formerly a telecom backwater. It was a minor POP location. But then several things happened. The UK lost its super telecom hub status because it had become almost a single point of failure. Virtually every Atlantic cable linking the two continents landed in Cornwall, England. Secondly, Brexit meant that the UK was no longer part of Europe proper, but rather a political anomaly on its periphery. Thirdly, the Digital Titans recognized that most Asian-Europe traffic Asia was bound for the European continent. Latency could be sharply reduced by going up the Red Sea, across Egypt, and then traverse the Mediterranean to Southern European landings. Finally, traffic originating in Asia and destined for Europe was growing rapidly.

So the bureaucrats of the Port Authority of Marseille built segregated landing facilities and sea lanes. Permit application process was streamlined so only one office was involved. Secure facilities were set up for power feeds. By the end of 2026, 16 cables will call Marseille their home. Most of the cable terminal equipment is actually located in one of Marseille Interxion's 3 data centers. This means that cross connects were cheap and fast. So anyone wishing to connect to a provider riding these cables could simply cross connect to them. No reason to go to Paris or Frankfurt to exchange traffic, buy or sell services. We do it here in Marseille. Hence Marseille was transformed into a major telecom hub with several data centers in planning like Telehouse Europe's project. 

Lisbon is undergoing a similar transformation. The most natural place for West African cables to land is Lisbon. Going via London into Europe is round about and British data surveillance regulations are more generous than what the EU permits. There will be 20 cables landing in Lisbon's vicinity and in service by the end of 2026. Many are major data arteries such as Equiano, 2Africa, Medusa, Ellalink, ACE, WACS, Mainone, Google's half petabit Nuvem system, Europe-India Gateway, etc. Lisbon's most important data center today is Lisbon Equinix (LS1) housed in a converted industrial facility. But there is the SINES facility as well as Telehouse Europe considering a site. There are a total of 25 data centers today in Greater Lisbon, but a large new facility in inevitable because Equinix took the lazy path of simply building LS2 adjacent to LS1. Data center redundancy is desperately needed. The market will rise to the challenge.

Let's be clear. Lisbon will never rival Marseille. It's simply geography. Lisbon is part of the Iberian Penisula. As a result, it adds latency as a landing for any Asian traffic not terminating in Lisbon. Secondly, I suspect Portugal provides a high dose of regulation. It even has rent control in Lisbon. That sort of mentality often spills over into zoning, permits, etc.