Roquetas de Mar, Spain

Roquetas de Mar: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Roquetas de Mar is a municipality on the Mediterranean coast of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalucía, southern Spain. As a submarine cable landing point, it hosts one cable that connects the Spanish mainland with the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla, located on the northern coast of Africa. This short coastal link creates a dedicated corridor between the Iberian Peninsula and a Spanish enclave that would otherwise rely on overland or longer sea routes for connectivity.

The single cable landing at Roquetas de Mar, the Roquetas-Melilla (CAM) system, spans 181 kilometres and defines this landing point as a focused, bilateral terminus rather than a multi-cable hub. Its role is narrow in geographic scope but specific in purpose, linking two points both under Spanish sovereignty across the western Mediterranean.

Cables Landing at Roquetas de Mar

Roquetas-Melilla (CAM) is a submarine cable measuring 181 kilometres in length, with a ready-for-service (RFS) date of 2014, listed as draft status. The system runs between Roquetas de Mar on the Andalusian coast of mainland Spain and Melilla, a Spanish autonomous city situated on the northern African coastline. Both endpoints fall within Spain, making this an entirely domestic cable in terms of sovereign territory, bridging the Iberian mainland with the Spanish enclave of Melilla across the Mediterranean Sea.

Regional Context

Within Spain's submarine cable network — which spans 34 cables across 46 landing points — Roquetas de Mar ranks in the upper half of landing points by cable count, hosting one system. Compared to peers such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, and Granadilla de Abona, each of which host three cables, Roquetas de Mar serves a more specialised connectivity function. Its single-cable profile places it alongside other focused landing points in Spain rather than among the country's multi-cable hubs.

Network Role

Roquetas de Mar functions as a single-cable terminus, anchoring the Spanish mainland end of the Roquetas-Melilla (CAM) link. This configuration means the landing point is entirely dedicated to the connectivity corridor between Andalucía and Melilla, rather than serving as a transit or aggregation point for broader international traffic. The 181-kilometre cable it hosts is considerably shorter than the Spanish average cable length of 3,793 kilometres, reflecting its intra-national, short-haul character.

In the broader Spanish submarine cable graph, Roquetas de Mar represents the designated Mediterranean landing point for maintaining direct undersea connectivity between the Iberian mainland and the autonomous city of Melilla, a route that requires a dedicated submarine cable given the sea crossing involved.