Ses Covetes, Spain

Ses Covetes, Spain: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Ses Covetes is a coastal locality on the southern shore of Mallorca, the largest island of the Balearic Islands, Spain. Situated within the municipality of Campos in the comarca of Migjorn, it serves as a submarine cable landing point hosting two cables that connect Mallorca to mainland Spain and to North Africa. This modest but notable infrastructure links the island into both domestic inter-island and international Mediterranean corridors.

The two cables landing at Ses Covetes — Penbal-5 and Alpal-2 — together represent distinct connectivity roles. One cable reinforces domestic Spanish connectivity across the Balearic Sea, while the other extends southward across the Mediterranean to Algeria, establishing a cross-sea international link from Mallorcan shores.

Cables Landing at Ses Covetes

Penbal-5 is a submarine cable measuring 315 km in length that entered service in 1994. It connects landing points within Spain, running between Ses Covetes and another Spanish terminus, making it a domestic inter-island or island-to-mainland link within the Spanish submarine cable network.

Alpal-2 is a submarine cable measuring 312 km in length that entered service in 2002. It connects Spain and Algeria, running between Ses Covetes and a landing point on the Algerian coast. At 312 km, it represents a relatively short Mediterranean crossing, linking the island of Mallorca directly to North Africa across the western Mediterranean basin.

Regional Context

Within Spain's submarine cable infrastructure — which spans 34 cables across 46 landing points — Ses Covetes ranks among the smaller nodes, hosting 2 cables and placing it in the top 88% of Spanish landing points by cable count. Larger Spanish hubs such as Barcelona, Valencia, and Bilbao each host 3 cables, as do Alta Vista and Granadilla de Abona in the Canary Islands and Santa Cruz de La Palma. Ses Covetes occupies a more focused role within this national network, serving specific intra-Spanish and Spain–Algeria connectivity rather than acting as a broad multi-corridor hub.

Network Role

Ses Covetes functions as a dual-cable terminus on the southern coast of Mallorca, simultaneously anchoring a domestic Spanish link through Penbal-5 and an international Mediterranean connection through Alpal-2. Together, these two cables give the landing point a dual-directional role: northward or laterally within Spanish waters via the older 1994 cable, and southward across the Mediterranean toward Algeria via the 2002 cable. Neither cable is a long-haul intercontinental system, both falling well below Spain's national average cable length of 3,793 km, which reflects their regional and cross-sea rather than oceanic scope.

As the only Mallorcan landing point in these FACTS connecting Spain to Algeria, Ses Covetes represents the island's direct participation in the Spain–North Africa submarine cable corridor. Its presence in Spain's broader network of 46 landing points illustrates how submarine cable infrastructure extends beyond major mainland cities to include island coasts, enabling geographically dispersed connectivity across the western Mediterranean.