Snapshot: 3 new submarine cable projects in the Caribbean

The Caribbean, Central America and the mid-Atlantic region more broadly are among the most active sweet spots for submarine cable projects, as BNamericas has been reporting.

This area has several projects in the construction, design and engineering phases. Systems previously announced include the Caribbean Express, Arimao and Gold Data.

Others have recently been disclosed by major builders and by internet and cloud giants such as Google.

Big techs such as Google are spearheading most of the current boom in the international data traffic market. 

The global submarine cable (power and telecom) market size was estimated at US$27.6bn last year, according to GrandView Research, and is expected to grow at a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 5.9% from 2023 to 2030.

Such growth is being fueled by a combination of factors, notably increased investments in offshore wind farms; inter-country and island connections for enhanced power supply and data transport communications; cloud demand; and the scaling of investments in deepwater oil and gas drilling.

BNamericas takes a look at three new projects announced for the Caribbean.

TAM-1

At 7,000km in length and linking Florida to Central America and the Caribbean, construction of the Trans Caribbean Fiber System, or simply TAM-1 as it was rebranded, began this month and it is projected to be ready for service in 2025.

The cable is owned by Trans Americas Fiber System, a UK company that is backed by Global Telecommunications Investment and LW Subsea Holdings. It is being built by Texas-based Xtera and has AT&T as its anchor-tenant. 

Xtera is also the EPC contractor for other key LatAm submarine cables, namely projects by GigNet in Cancún, Mexico, and the new system for the Galapagos islands in Ecuador.

What it is more, TAM-1 is expected to be only the first part of a wider network.

“TAM-1 is the first stage of a broader digital infrastructure project, which will be carried out over the next five years, creating a large scale, high reliability network across the entire Caribbean Basin, with extensions to Pacific South America,” the companies said in a statement.

The system will have 24 pairs of fiber optics and is planned to have 11 landing stations along its route. These have not yet been fully specified but include Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Croix and Tortola.

AMX-3/TIKAL

Telxius and América Móvil joined forces and announced at the beginning of this year a new system linking Boca Raton in Florida with Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, with potential extensions to Cancún and Colombia’s Barranquilla.

The 1,000km AMX-3/Tikal cable (possible extensions excluded) is projected to have estimated initial capacity of 190Tbps and is also planned to be activated in 2025.

Despite being co-owned, the project has different names: AMX-3 for América Móvil and Tikal for Telxius, a Telefónica infra subsidiary.

Nokia’s ASN is the cable supplier. Tikal joins other systems fully or partially owned by Telxius in Latin America, such as Brusa, Tannat, Junior, Mistral, SAM-1 and PCCS. The company claims that Tikal is the seventh new next-generation cable to complete its global network since 2018.

Puerto Barrios is also a landing point for the AMX-1, South-America 1 (SAM-1) and ARCOS cables.

Tikal cable detail, in purple, with its potential extensions in dots. Credit: Telxius

NUVEM

Continuing its strategy of having cables for its own use, rather than shared with other companies as in the past, Google this week announced Nuvem, or cloud in Portuguese, a cable crossing the Atlantic and with a landing point in Bermuda.

The entire system is expected to be ready for service in 2026 connecting South Carolina to Portugal. The EPC contract has not yet been revealed, but for its recent projects Google has teamed up with US firm SubCom.

Google did not disclose the exact length of the system, but considering the distances involved it should be no less than 6,300km. 

Bermuda, for its part, is pushing ahead with plans to develop a subsea telecommunications corridor between the Americas, Western Europe and Africa, with new legislation passed in recent years to facilitate the industry's development.

The main one was the Submarine Cables Permit and Licensing Act, from 2019 and approved in 2020.

At present, Bermuda has four cables connected to its shores: the Caribbean-Bermuda US (CBUS), owned by Liberty Latin America (LLA) and launched in 2009; the Challenger Bermuda-1 (CB-1), owned by One Communications and launched in 2008; Gemini Bermuda, also LLA, which went live in 2007; and GlobeNet's system, owned by Brazil's V.tal and activated in 2000.

Nuvem route. Credit Google