Portugal news - What is the PISCES subsea cable that will link Portugal to Ireland?
The PISCES subsea telecoms cable, that will provide direct connectivity between Portugal, Spain, France, and Ireland, is funded by the EU under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). The CEF is the EU funding instrument for strategic investments in transport, energy, and digital infrastructure.
The PISCES subsea cable has an overall budget of 8,000,428 euros, out of which the EU contribution amounts to 4,000,214 euros. The EU-funded project, that has an end date of 30 March 2025, is coordinated by Irish company McMahon Design and Management Ltd.
The new PISCES subsea cable will provide direct telecommunications connectivity through a trunk subsea cable from Portugal, with branching links to France and/or Spain, to Ireland and the rest of the EU. The subsea cable project will address the shortfall of telecoms connectivity between Ireland and the rest of the EU with high capacity, open access, and scalable dark fibre. It will provide a strategic link that will meet the objectives of the Digital Global Gateway Strategy of the EU.
The main trunk of the PISCES subsea fibre optic system will connect Sines in Portugal to Dublin and will cover 2,131 km. During phase 2 of the project, it will also connect to Bilbao in Spain with a cable length of 840 km.
The PISCES subsea cable system will have the ability to link and complement the following cable systems on Europe’s western seabord: AEC (2017), Rockabill (2019), Marea (2018), Havfrue (2020), EllaLink (2021), Equiano (2022), Amitie (2021), Dunant (2020), Scylla (2021), Grace Hopper (2021), 2Africa (2024), IRIS (2022), and Tuskar (2022).