Terceira, Portugal

Terceira, Portugal: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Terceira is a volcanic island in the Azores archipelago, located approximately 1,181 kilometres west of Lisbon in the Atlantic Ocean. As one of the larger islands of the Azores, with a population of around 53,311 and an area of roughly 397 square kilometres, it sits in a mid-Atlantic position that makes it a natural waypoint for submarine cable routing. One submarine cable lands at Terceira, connecting the island within a cable system that operates among Portuguese territories.

The single cable serving Terceira is the New CAM Ring, a system that links multiple landing points within Portugal. The ring architecture of this cable suggests an intra-Portuguese connectivity corridor, likely spanning between the Azores, Madeira, and the Portuguese mainland, providing inter-island and island-to-mainland connectivity across Atlantic distances.

Cables Landing at Terceira

The New CAM Ring is the sole submarine cable landing at Terceira. With a total length of 3,812 kilometres and a ready-for-service date of 2026, it is currently in a draft stage. All other landing points on this cable are also located within Portugal, making it an entirely intra-national system. The cable's length, spanning nearly 3,812 kilometres among Portuguese endpoints, reflects the considerable Atlantic distances involved in connecting the Azores and other Portuguese island groups to the mainland.

Regional Context

Among submarine cable landing points in Portugal, Terceira sits alongside Machico as one of the more lightly served locations, each hosting a single cable, while Carcavelos leads the country with five cables and Funchal and Sesimbra each host three. São Miguel, another island in the Azores archipelago, hosts two cables, giving it somewhat broader connectivity than Terceira within the same island group. Terceira's participation in the New CAM Ring places it within an intra-Portuguese network rather than connecting it directly to international corridors served by the higher-capacity mainland and Madeira landing points.

Network Role

Terceira functions as a single-cable terminus within the Portuguese domestic submarine cable graph. Its connection via the New CAM Ring, once the system reaches its 2026 ready-for-service date, will provide the island with a dedicated fibre-optic path linking it to other Portuguese landing points across Atlantic distances. The ring topology of the New CAM Ring is notable in that it offers a degree of route redundancy not available to a simple point-to-point cable.

Within the broader Portuguese submarine cable network, Terceira represents the extension of national connectivity into the mid-Atlantic, ensuring that the Azores archipelago remains integrated with the mainland and with other Portuguese island territories through modern undersea infrastructure.