The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, and the President of Telefónica España, Borja Ochoa, held a meeting at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Government in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to analyze investment strategies aimed at improving the resilience of the Archipelago in the face of emergency situations.
During the meeting, both agreed on the need to strengthen technological infrastructures and guarantee the stability of communication services in the Islands to make them more resilient.
The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, stressed the key role of public-private collaboration to face the challenges in terms of connectivity and emergencies. In this context, he highlighted the importance of "Investment in telecommunications resilience to protect our citizens and ensure the continuous development of our Autonomous Community." He also acknowledged Telefónica's commitment and expressed confidence "in making progress in these crucial projects."
Borja Ochoa, President of Telefónica España, presented a detailed action plan that includes strengthening and optimizing connectivity to guarantee voice calls between islands in critical moments, building new diversified communication routes, and implementing energy systems with greater capacity. "We want to collaborate with the Government of the Canary Islands to implement innovative solutions that guarantee the best telecommunications in the Archipelago," Ochoa said.
Both parties have agreed to establish joint monitoring to supervise the implementation of the measures and ensure the effective fulfillment of the objectives. They also announced a series of immediate actions to strengthen the response capacity to emergencies and minimize the impact of possible future incidents.
Among the measures, the increase of energy autonomy in critical infrastructures such as mobile network base stations and telecommunications centers stands out; the exploration of connection redundancy with satellite communications or the strengthening of submarine cable deployments such as PENCAN-X, essential elements for the digital connection of the Archipelago with the outside. In addition, dedicated voice and data cores will be deployed in the Canary Islands, which will allow managing inter-island traffic independently. Thanks to all these measures, in case of total isolation, the continuity of critical services such as the Canary Islands Emergency and Security Coordinating Center 112, as well as the citizen information and service number 012, will be guaranteed.
The Deputy Minister of the Presidency, Alfonso Cabello, and the Deputy Minister of the Cabinet of the Presidency, Octavio Caraballo, also attended the meeting held in Gran Canaria.
The PENCAN-X submarine cable
Among the latest projects announced by Telefónica España for the Canary Islands, it is worth highlighting the deployment of the PENCAN-X submarine cable to connect the Archipelago with the Peninsula. This strategic project will guarantee robust connectivity, with high performance and minimum latency between the Archipelago and the rest of the world.
The PENCAN-X pursues a double objective: on the one hand, to replace one of the three existing submarine routes between the Canary Archipelago and the Peninsula; and, on the other hand, to provide greater transmission capacity. This cable will multiply by ten all the capacity currently available and will incorporate the latest advances in the submarine cable industry to, in this way, accommodate the growing demand for services that need a secure, robust, high-performance and high-capacity ultra-broadband network.
The support of European funds, both through the European Commission and through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function, has been fundamental to adapt the characteristics of the submarine cable deployment to European security standards and strategic autonomy policy, all with minimal environmental impact.
