The Chilean government has awarded Huawei Marine the contract to build a subsea cable connecting with the country’s far south.

Multiple media reports cited a statement from the Chinese technology giant, in which it said that it will partner with CTR (Comunicación y Telefonía Rural) to build the Fiber Óptica Austral (FOA), a 2,800 km connection from Puerto Montt to the Patagonian cities of Caleta Tortel and Punta Arenas through to Puerto Williams in the far south.

Subtel, as a Vice Ministry of Telecommunication and Transportation Ministry of Chile, will invest in the new FOA to connect Las Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes regions. CTR was awarded the contract to deploy and operate the network, while Huawei Marine will provide the end-to-end submarine cable solution. The system, which has a design capacity of 16 Tb/s, is expected to be completed by the end of 2019..