V.tal to open new Barranquilla datacenter by June

Brazilian neutral fiber network and connectivity provider V.tal plans to activate its second edge datacenter in Barranquilla, Colombia, by the end of the first half 2023.

“The civil construction project is advanced and we intend to go live with the site at the end of May, beginning of June,” Cicero Olivieri, V.tal’s CTO and vice president of engineering, told BNamericas.

First announced in 2021, the site is under the umbrella of GlobeNet, controlled by BTG Pactual and absorbed by V.tal in the process that led to V.tal's creation. Launched in August 2021, the V.tal JV is now 65.9%-owned by funds linked to BTG Pactual and 34.12%-owned by Oi.

The new Barranquilla site was initially planned to be ready this year and operational in the first quarter of 2023. According to Olivieri, the delay was due to the logistical and supply woes that have affected the entire industry.

“Notably, the generator part, electric components, direct current (DC) energy [were affected]. Luckily, we have a well-structured purchasing process for our projects that minimized that,” he said.

Dubbed Chiva 2, the new datacenter is adjacent to the first building, Chiva 1. It has 3,700m2 of total area and 600m2 of white space – which is the space intended for the racks. Total power capacity will be 2.1MW.

These 600m2 are divided into two 300m2 data halls with space for 100 racks each, to be offered to internet companies, over-the-top providers, internet-service providers and content-delivery networks.

The facilities will also be fully connected to the submarine cable that lands in the city. Barranquilla, like Fortaleza in Brazil, is a major submarine cable gateway in South America.

GlobeNet operates a landing point of its 26,000km sub-sea network in Barranquilla. 

Built by Nokia's Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), the network started operations in 2000 and connects Argentina (Las Toninas), Brazil (Praia Grande, Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza), Venezuela (Maiquetia), Colombia (Barranquilla), Bermuda (St. David's), and the US (Boca Raton and Tuckerton).

The company does not detail who their customers are. One, however, is US-based IP transit and connectivity provider Hurricane Electric, which already makes use of GlobeNet's structures in Barranquilla and Fortaleza, where GlobeNet is also finalizing a second datacenter, to be inaugurated in early 2023.

Hurricane Electric announced the installation of a fourth point-of-presence (PoP) in Brazil, located at GlobeNet’s Fortaleza facilities.

This new PoP came online in Q3, tripling the number of racks and power available.

According to Hurricane Electric, customers can exchange IP traffic with Hurricane Electric's global network, which offers over 30,000 Border Gateway Protocol sessions with over 10,000 different networks via more than 280 major exchange points and thousands of customer and private peering ports.

FUNDING

In related news, V.tal was cleared by the Brazilian communications ministry to issue 2.5bn reais (US$480mn) in debentures.

Resources from the issuance must be used for the expansion and modernization of the data transport network, access network, and infrastructure for telecom network virtualization in all Brazilian states.

In November, V.tal had already secured funding, also of 2.5bn reais, through a capital increase underwritten by BTG with funds from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). 

The funds from this capital injection will be used to deploy fiber in new sites and for acquisitions, as well as the development of new business lines related mainly to digital infrastructure.