Chilean Navy partners with Cirion, Gtd and Telxius on subsea cable protection

Details: John Tanner; Category: Optical & Fixed Networks; 10 November 2026; 114 views

Armada de Chile (the Chilean Navy) says it has signed an MoU with local telecoms operators Cirion, Gtd and Telxius to explore ways to cooperate in protecting subsea cables landing in Chile.

All three service providers operate landing stations in the Valparaíso region, where Chile’s main subsea cable landing points are concentrated.

Under the MoU – which was signed last Wednesday and announced in a press release from the navy on Thursday – Armada de Chile, Cirion, Gtd and Telxius will look at how they can work together in providing security, protection, resilience and continuity of subsea cable connections in “exceptional situations” that require the Navy's action.

The MoU seeks to establish permanent communication channels and develop coordination protocols that will enable “timely action” to respond to incidents, crises or conflicts that may affect subsea cables.

The MoU also proposes the formation of a coordination committee comprising representatives of the First Naval Zone, the General Directorate of the Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine, and all three operators. The committee would be tasked with promoting development of specific protocols and keep all parties updated on its progress.

“Submarine cables are fundamental for Chile's connectivity and for its integration with the world,” said Gtd GM Fernando Gana. “An essential part of our communications depends on this infrastructure, so its protection requires coordination, trust and permanent work between the public and private sectors.”

“Since [subsea cables] are so essential, their protection is very important to us, that's why we want to thank the Navy for this initiative,” added Jesús María Rubio, director of operations, networks and systems at Telxius. “We believe that all this coordination, having an agile communication channel, and also having that rapid reaction capacity, is very important, and I think that today we are taking a big step.”

“More than 99% of intercontinental data traffic circulates through these cables, so their security is a shared responsibility,” said Cirion’s country manager and sales director Carlos Oviedo.

Rear Admiral Raúl Silva, Commander-in-Chief of the First Naval Zone, said the MoU was a milestone: “The truth is that we have been trying for a long time to integrate and work in coordination with the companies that are associated with all the submarine cables that arrive in the area.”

Valparaíso's digital hub ambitions

Chile’s Valparaíso Region has been positioning itself as a digital hub in South America and a key point for international telecommunications.

In June this year, the Valparaíso regional government’s Regional Coastal Use Commission approved the installation and operation of Google’s Humboldt subsea cable system that will connect Chile with Australia in 2028 via its Bulikula cable ring in the Pacific Islands, giving the country its first direct international subsea link outside of South America.

In August, Google announced plans to expand its global network infrastructure in the Americas with three new subsea cable systems, one of which – the Alisios system – will connect Chile with the Dominican Republic and Panama.

Subsea cable risks

Physical subsea cable security has become a hot issue in the past few years as cable breaks have disrupted Internet connectivity around the world. Earlier this year, the ITU’s International Advisory Body on Submarine Cable Resilience issued a report that assessed prominent risks to subsea cables (which now includes climate change), highlighted the vulnerability of developing countries to outages, and recommended a proactive approach and greater stakeholder cooperation to tackling the issue.

Meanwhile, some subsea cable breaks have been blamed on sabotage, to include several in the Baltic sea, which some European government officials have said may be linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which Moscow has denied. Earlier this month, A Finnish court convicted Andrei Maksimenko, the Russian captain of the cargo vessel Fitburg, and Vusal Majidov, its Azerbaijani boatswain, for deliberately cutting subsea cables in the Gulf of Finland.

The government of Taiwan has accused China of sabotaging subsea cables in the Taiwan Strait over the past couple of years, which Beijing has denied. Last year, according to the BBC, the Tainan District Court sentenced a Chinese national who was captain of a vessel registered in Togo to three years in prison for damaging an undersea cable connecting Taiwan's main island and the Penghu islands.

In October, Reuters reported that Iran has detailed contingency plans to target subsea cables in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz if the US or Israel renewed attacks on the country. Last week, according to the Financial Times, maritime intelligence firm Windward said several tanker ships linked to Iran were drifting over subsea cables in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz.