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Comment by djha-skin | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if it was easier to work with Portugal because they own the Azores, a collection of islands pretty far out in the Atlantic and a convenient stopover before hitting the main continent.

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It is a bummer, yes, we have fiber across all Azores' islands but latency to the US is high because we have to go through mainland Europe.

Curious, I'm someone mentioned me the Azores having direct connection to North America. And maybe it does but not for consumer connection.

We have fiber connecting all islands and one subsea cable connected to Portugal mainland. Maybe the US military have a hidden one connected to North America, but I doubt.

If you give me a domain/IP that is in NA I will ping/trace it and post here the results if you like.

Azores is quite a bit south of this cable from what is shown in the picture.

Doing a map of a flight from Sines, to Bermuda, to Charleston airports:

* http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=LPSI-TXKF-KCHS

The (great circle) route is straight through the Azores.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_navigation

Whomever made the map for the diagram just drew a straight line from Portugal to Bermuda, which works for a flat surface, but in the real world the world is round, so the shortest distance is often curved (as it appears on a 2D projection).

However this site shows the cable travelling south of the Azores:

* https://www.fiberatlantic.com/system/n5OE4

Not really south, it's just a bit north: Ponta Delgada - Latitude: 37.7333 Longitude: -25.6667. Lisbon - Latitude 38.71667 Longitude -9.13333. It is the exclusive economic zones of Portugal that are in the path of the cable: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone_of_P...

The article doesn't mention anything about the Azores or Madeira.

I also would have expected the Azores to be involved. Mainland Portugal to Massachusetts via Azores seems like it'd be a shorter shot than Mainland Portugal to Bermuda to NC. Especially given how much further west NC is vs MA

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