Velas, Portugal

Velas, Portugal: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Velas is a municipality on São Jorge Island, part of the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores, situated in the North Atlantic Ocean. As a landing point for submarine cable infrastructure, Velas connects São Jorge Island to the broader Portuguese telecommunications network. One submarine cable lands at Velas, linking it to mainland Portugal and forming part of the intra-Portuguese cable corridor that spans the Azores archipelago.

The single cable landing at Velas is the Azores Fiber Optic System (AFOS), an inter-island and island-to-mainland system that ties Azorean communities into Portugal's national network. The connection enabled by this cable is regional in character, running entirely within Portuguese territory and serving the connectivity needs of island communities in the Atlantic.

Cables Landing at Velas

The Azores Fiber Optic System (AFOS) is the sole submarine cable landing at Velas. Spanning approximately 1,100 km, it reached ready-for-service status in 1998. The cable connects locations within Portugal, linking Azorean islands to one another and to the Portuguese mainland. As an intra-Portuguese system, AFOS plays a purely domestic role in geographic terms, forming a dedicated submarine link within the Azores regional network.

Regional Context

Within Portugal's 19 submarine cable landing points, Velas hosts a single cable, placing it in the upper half of landing points by cable count — ranking within the top 53 percent nationally. Portugal's most connected landing points, such as Carcavelos with eight cables and Sesimbra with five, serve as the country's primary international gateways, while Velas sits among a set of landing points — including Ponta Delgada and São Miguel, each with three cables — that form the Azorean segment of Portugal's submarine cable footprint. Funchal and Sines, each with four cables, represent further nodes in Portugal's distributed landing point geography.

Network Role

Velas functions as a single-cable terminus rather than a multi-cable hub, anchoring São Jorge Island's submarine connectivity through the AFOS system. The landing point enables inter-island and island-to-mainland communication entirely within Portuguese territory, supporting the Azores' integration into the national telecommunications fabric. With a cable dating to 1998, Velas represents one of the earlier nodes in Portugal's submarine cable network, which recorded its first cable RFS in 1996.

In the regional submarine cable graph, Velas illustrates how island communities in dispersed Atlantic archipelagos depend on dedicated domestic cable systems to maintain connectivity, even as larger international hubs elsewhere in Portugal handle transoceanic traffic.