Ponta de Pedras, Brazil

Ponta de Pedras, Brazil: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Ponta de Pedras is a municipality in the state of Pará, located on the Marajó-Açu River within the Marajó mesoregion of northern Brazil. As a coastal and riverine community on Marajó Island, it serves as the landing point for one submarine cable, connecting it to Brazil's broader domestic telecommunications infrastructure. The single cable landing here places Ponta de Pedras within a national network that spans 22 submarine cables across 64 landing points throughout Brazil.

The cable landing at Ponta de Pedras supports a domestic corridor, linking this municipality to other points within Brazil rather than to international destinations. This positions Ponta de Pedras as part of an intra-national submarine cable network, extending connectivity into a region of the Amazon estuary that is geographically remote from the major international cable hubs on Brazil's Atlantic coast.

Cables Landing at Ponta de Pedras

Norte Conectado (Infovia 03) is a 600-kilometer submarine cable with a scheduled ready-for-service date of 2025, currently in draft status. The cable connects landing points entirely within Brazil, functioning as a domestic link. At 600 kilometers, it is considerably shorter than the Brazilian average cable length of 4,840 kilometers, reflecting its role as a regional connector rather than a long-haul international system. Norte Conectado (Infovia 03) brings Ponta de Pedras into an emerging domestic submarine cable route designed to serve communities in the northern regions of the country.

Regional Context

Within Brazil, Ponta de Pedras hosts one submarine cable, placing it among the smaller landing points in a country where hubs such as Fortaleza (10 cables), Rio de Janeiro (8 cables), and Santos (5 cables) handle significantly higher cable counts. Ponta de Pedras ranks in the top 81 percent of Brazil's 74 landing points by cable count, reflecting that while it is not a major hub, the majority of Brazilian landing points host a similarly modest number of cables. Its position in the Marajó region distinguishes it geographically from the heavily connected Atlantic seaboard cities.

Network Role

Ponta de Pedras functions as a single-cable terminus, served exclusively by the Norte Conectado (Infovia 03) system. This domestic cable enables a direct submarine link between Ponta de Pedras and other Brazilian landing points, extending modern cable infrastructure into the Marajó Island area of Pará state — a region whose geography, shaped by the Amazon estuary and river systems, makes terrestrial connectivity challenging. The cable is scheduled to become operational in 2025.

As a single-cable landing point within an entirely domestic cable system, Ponta de Pedras represents the extension of Brazil's submarine cable network into its northern interior waterways. Its inclusion in the Norte Conectado project signals an effort to bring submarine cable connectivity to landing points that sit well outside the international cable corridors concentrated along Brazil's southeastern and northeastern coastlines, broadening the domestic reach of the country's overall submarine cable graph.