Since March 6, the call notice for bidding procedure for the optical infrastructure and telecommunications services that will connect the national education and research networks of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, as well as specific network infrastructure for Chile and an international submarine cable connection between Brazil and Colombia.

The bidding procedure is one of the stages of the Bella-T project, responsible for the terrestrial connections of the Bella (Building European Link to Latin America) project, which in turn will build the first direct international connection between Europe and Latin America, with transmission capacity of data of at least 100 Gbps.

It is expected to enter into contracts for irrevocable use rights (IRUs) for periods of at least 15 years for the use of optical fiber and/or optical channels with a capacity of 100 Gbps or more.

Funded by the European Commission, the Bella-T project's purpose is to offer an expandable, scalable, high-capacity terrestrial optical infrastructure in Latin America. One of the fronts will focus on the construction of the new backbone of the Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks (RedCLARA), which interconnects the academic networks of the region.

The largest land stretch of the Bella-T is in Brazil and corresponds to 6,200 km of extension, between Fortaleza and Porto Alegre. This section is the responsibility of RNP itself and is part of its “Backbone 100 G” project, benefiting also Brazilian cities that will have access to the network with capacity of 100 Gbps.

The interested companies in participating of the concourse should access the RedCLARA website, in the address https://bella-tender.redclara.net.