Letter to a friend:
“Stupid!”

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My Brazilian dear friend,

I fully understand your reaction at the Neil Tagare paper recently published on his blog under the following title “Stupid Brazilian Government is clueless how the internet works”. His message is that the planned Brazil to Portugal cable (the EllaLink project) is a “stupid” idea. Neil is once again using hurtful words, saying things that he probably does not really mean. The opinions he is pushing forward would be better served by a more moderate and more appropriated language. But so is Neil!

He is definitively right when he says that this potential cable is not the solution which will fully protect Brazil from US (NSA) snooping. Also right to say that the USA will stay the main destination of the Brazilian traffic. This is why several big cables are presently at the implementation or planning stage on this thick route.

His statement seems to suggest that Brazil should be connected exclusively to the USA a bit like a fetus is linked to his mother through an umbilical cord.

He also states that governments in general “should stay away from these issues”.

I have a different view. I think there are two types of submarine cable projects: the ones responding to obvious needs clearly perceived and the ones designed to create or stimulate new needs. The first ones are logically a market for the private interests, the others ones correspond to a political vision; the willingness to build what will be good for the country. When two communities live on each side of a large river, it is the duty of the authority to build a bridge that will generate positive exchanges.

A new bridge between South-America and Europe, in our multipolar world, is for me obvious, self-evident. The today economical situation of both Brazil and Europe does not make this implementation easy but this cable is not stupid at all.

Sooner or later, it will happen!


Jean Devos
AQEST Senior Advisor


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