Fluxys Belgium and Arteria agree to jointly market their dark fibre-optic networks

Brussels • Fluxys Belgium and Arteria have signed an infrastructure cooperation agreement with a view to facilitate further fibre-optic network expansion in Western Europe. Both companies have large networks in their respective countries in Belgium and France. Paris, as a telecommunications hub with international relevance, is an important destination for Fluxys Belgium’s dark fibre customers, and Arteria is expanding its marketable fibre-optic infrastructure specifically into neighbouring countries.

Arteria, a subsidiary of RTE (French Electricity Transmission System operator), and Fluxys Belgium both commercialize fibre-optic cables which are blown into cable ducts installed alongside respectively the power grid and the gas pipelines. Part of the fibre-optic cables are used for operating the power and gas grid, while the other part is leased to customers on a long-term basis for telecommunication purposes.

Through the interconnection point at the Belgian border the Fluxys Belgium’s fibre customers have a direct link into the Arteria’s fibre backbone connecting to the Paris telecommunications hub. Brussels is an interconnectivity point with an Internet node, the BNIX, which is crucially important in Europe for the Internet and intra-European peering. Through this cooperation with Fluxys Belgium, Arteria can offer its customers a connection to the BNIX and other destinations in Belgium, among others.

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Gilles Calligaro, CEO of Arteria:

This partnership with Fluxys is essential to ensure our clients cross-border optical routes as diverse and exclusive as those we offer in France. This is an opening to new destinations, such as Brussels, for Arteria’s DWDM network.”

Erik Vennekens, Director Digital of Fluxys Belgium:

We are very pleased to broaden our long-standing cooperation with Arteria. Through this agreement our dark fibre customers will have an easy and high-performing one-stop-shop access to capacity across the French dark fibre market (which is part of the Frankfurt-London-Amsterdam-Paris internet hub).”

About Arteria

Arteria, a subsidiary of RTE (the French high voltage power grid), offers a unique telecom infrastructure throughout France. With more than 25,000 km of optical fiber, a new generation DWDM network, nearly 3,000 electrical substations and more than 70,000 available pylons, Arteria provides to customers a range of exclusive solutions to the market: dark fiber, wavelength, towerco and housing.

Visit us at arteria.fr

About FluxysBelgium

Fluxys Belgium is a Euronext listed subsidiary of infrastructure group Fluxys headquartered in Belgium. With 900 employees the company operates 4,000 kilometers of pipeline, a liquefied natural gas terminal totalling a yearly regasification capacity of 174 TWh and an underground storage facility.

As a purpose-led company, Fluxys Belgium together with its stakeholders contributes to a better society by shaping a bright energy future. Building on the unique assets of its infrastructure and its commercial and technical expertise, Fluxys Belgium is committed to transporting hydrogen, biomethane or any other carbon-neutral energy carrier as well as CO₂, accommodating the capture, usage and storage of the latter.