Porto Novo, Cape Verde

Porto Novo, Cape Verde: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Porto Novo is a landing point in Cape Verde, the Atlantic archipelago nation situated off the northwest coast of Africa. As an island nation, Cape Verde depends on submarine cables to maintain connectivity between its individual islands, and Porto Novo serves as one of ten such landing points distributed across the archipelago. Two submarine cables come ashore at Porto Novo, both forming part of the domestic inter-island cable network operated by Cabo Verde Telecom.

Both cables landing at Porto Novo connect destinations entirely within Cape Verde, placing this landing point firmly within the country's internal island connectivity framework rather than on any intercontinental route. Together, they reflect two successive phases of infrastructure investment in Cape Verde's domestic submarine cable programme, with the first arriving in 2002 and the second following nearly a decade later in 2011.

Cables Landing at Porto Novo, Cape Verde

Cabo Verde Telecom Domestic Submarine Cable Phase 2 entered service in 2002 and connects islands within Cape Verde. This cable forms part of the second phase of Cabo Verde Telecom's domestic submarine network, extending inter-island connectivity to Porto Novo as one of its landing points.

Cabo Verde Telecom Domestic Submarine Cable Phase 3 entered service in 2011 and likewise connects locations within Cape Verde. As the third phase of the domestic programme, it represents a continued expansion of the inter-island network, with Porto Novo again included as a terminus on this system.

Regional Context

Among Cape Verde's ten submarine cable landing points, Porto Novo ranks in the upper portion by cable count, hosting two cables alongside Sal Rei and Tarrafal de Santiago at the same level. Praia leads the country with five cables, followed by Sao Pedro with three, while Murdeira and Nova Sintra each host a single cable. Porto Novo therefore sits in a mid-tier grouping within Cape Verde's domestic cable geography.

Network Role

Porto Novo functions as a domestic inter-island connectivity point within the Cape Verde submarine cable network. Both cables landing here are entirely intra-national in scope, linking islands of the Cape Verde archipelago rather than reaching outward to continental Africa, Europe, or the Americas. With two cables, Porto Novo is a modest multi-cable terminus rather than a single-system endpoint, providing a degree of redundancy within the domestic network.

In the broader map of Cape Verde's submarine cable infrastructure, Porto Novo contributes to the distributed architecture of ten landing points that collectively keep the archipelago's islands interconnected. Its position as a two-cable landing point gives it slightly greater resilience than single-cable sites such as Murdeira and Nova Sintra, reinforcing the inter-island fabric that underpins connectivity across Cape Verde.