Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria will be connected by two new submarine cables within the framework of the Ring Project. Vodafone Spain and the Tenerife company Canalink, which depends on the Tenerife Island Council, have signed an agreement to have dedicated fibers, a high-speed internet connection, with an exclusive and symmetrical link, in each of these new cables.
The marine surveys to analyze the technical feasibility and the impact on the environment concluded on March 20, 2025 and gave the green light to the project. This laying will be operational by the end of 2026.
According to Vodafone Spain in a statement, this project will "strengthen connectivity in the province of Las Palmas, guaranteeing long-term capacity and reinforcing the resilience of the system."
"This agreement reinforces our commitment to connectivity in the Canary Islands, ensuring the capacity and resilience necessary for the archipelago to face its digital transformation with guarantees in the coming years. We continue working to ensure that Vodafone Spain is a strategic partner in the economic and social development of the islands, consolidating its role as a digital hub in the Atlantic," said Jesús Suso, director of Vodafone Empresas.
This effort is complemented by the recent deployment of the 2Africa cable, which connects the Canary Islands with Portugal and provides the archipelago with the capacity necessary to meet the digital demands of the coming decades.
This agreement with our strategic partner Canalink will allow Vodafone Spain to reinforce the strategic position of the Canary Islands as a digital node in the Atlantic, ensuring robust connectivity for the coming decades.
For his part, the CEO of Canalink, Rubén Molowny, stressed that "this agreement with Vodafone Spain is a step of vital importance to consolidate the Canary Islands as a digital node of reference in the Atlantic. From Canalink we celebrate being able to advance together with a strategic partner such as Vodafone in an initiative that demonstrates how public-private collaboration can transform the digital capacity of an entire territory."
A submarine cable key to the connectivity of the eastern islands
The GC-LNZ-FU Ring project, co-financed by the European Union through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program, will deploy two repeater-less submarine cables with eight fiber pairs that will connect Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, with a total capacity of 308 Tbps and an estimated lifespan of 25 years. With a budget of 34 million euros, of which 23 million come from European funds, this strategic infrastructure seeks to increase the capacity and resilience of the network in the eastern islands, incorporating bifurcation units to guarantee redundancy.
Thus, Vodafone Spain has assured that all this is done "respecting the marine environment through technical studies and the presence of specialized observers during the installation work".