Mobile Tech

New fiber subsea system will connect Americas to the Caribbean

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

New pan-Caribbean fiber-optic system construction planned to help develop the Caribbean islands.

Deep Blue Cable, the developer, owner and operator of a subsea fiber-optic system providing connectivity across the Caribbean islands and to the Americas, has announced that they have contracted with TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, to build and deploy the Deep Blue subsea cable system. The pan-Caribbean system design spans nearly 12,000 km with initial landing points in 12 markets throughout the region, including the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, and Turks & Caicos Islands, with dual diverse landings in the U.S., which will include the first landing of a cable on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

The Deep Blue subsea cable network, which will offer an initial capacity of 6 Tbps per fiber pair and is projected to be completed in Q4 of 2019, will ensure availability, competitive pricing and capacity resilience. The Deep Blue network will benefit the region’s businesses and consumers by offering significantly higher design capacity, lower unit costs, lower latency through direct connectivity, and the ability to leverage advancements in reliability such as improved route planning and installation techniques.

“Deep Blue Cable has great confidence in TE SubCom and its ability to build a state-of-the-art subsea cable system that will provide long overdue advanced connectivity across the Caribbean islands and to the Americas,” commented Stephen Scott, CEO of Deep Blue Cable. “The Deep Blue cable system will play a critical role in serving developing Caribbean countries that are now experiencing a surge in demand for advanced telecom services and currently rely on fiber-optic connectivity that is technologically and economically disadvantaged.”

The Deep Blue cable system will be a network providing direct fiber connectivity between major traffic hubs, as well as optical add/drop connectivity to many smaller markets throughout the region. Using TE SubCom’s proven OADM (optical add/drop multiplexer) branching unit technology, Deep Blue Cable can cost-effectively supply international bandwidth across a range of Caribbean markets, large and small, in a scalable manner over time.

“TE SubCom is pleased to be entrusted by Deep Blue Cable with the construction of their fiber-optic subsea cable system, which will expand and enhance connectivity across the Caribbean region and to the Americas,” said Mike Rieger, vice president of sales at TE SubCom. “In a region that has experienced no significant fiber-optic deployment in recent years, this submarine cable will satisfy not only the current spike in demand for connectivity in developing Caribbean countries, but also future requirements driven by projected growth.”