Good news for the ambitious tunnel project linking Spain and Morocco: a British company will provide its telecommunications services. Morocco and Spain have signed a partnership contract with Vodafone to supply voice communication and data transmission services required by the planning team overseeing the tunnel project between the two countries. According to the Spanish newspaper AS, an annual budget of €24,461 has been allocated for two years—around €29,589 including taxes—to cover the cost of equipment and services. Vodafone was the only company to submit a bid for the project. The technical specifications require the British provider to deliver a symmetrical connection speed of 1 gigabit per second with automatic support, a set of public IP addresses for secure virtual private network (VPN) communications, as well as corporate communication services and a 24/7 monitoring system. The contract also stipulates that Vodafone must handle any potential malfunctions by implementing full emergency tracking, along with preventive and corrective maintenance. It must also ensure the capacity of the project's lines and services can be increased by up to 50%. The project to connect both shores of the Strait of Gibraltar through an undersea tunnel had been stuck in reports and studies with little tangible progress since the original agreement was signed on October 24, 1980. That changed in April 2023, when the two countries officially revived the initiative. This revival came with a strong financial boost: the Spanish public company SECEGSA, responsible for feasibility studies, saw its budget rise dramatically, from less than €100,000 in 2022 to over €4.7 million in 2024, partly thanks to EU recovery and resilience funds. The plan envisions a tunnel dedicated exclusively to trains, with no access for cars. At 60 kilometers long, including 28 kilometers under the sea, it would become one of the world's longest tunnels, surpassing the Channel Tunnel (50.5 km) between France and the UK.
