How Trans Americas plans to make a splash in the regional submarine cable business

Central America and the Caribbean are about to be connected to a cable system with low latency and high capacity that will help to boost data transfers.

Developed by Trans Americas Fiber System, a UK company backed by Global Telecommunications Investment and LW Subsea Holdings, works on the TAM-1 are underway and it is due to be ready for service in 2025. With an initial length of 7,000km and with AT&T as anchor tenant, the cable will connect several countries with dozens of landing stations.

In this interview, CCO Mario Montero provides details about the current status of the project, the next steps, expansion possibilities and new business opportunities.

BNamericas: What’s the status of the project schedule?

Montero: Unlike many systems we have heard of over the last few years, we wanted to announce it only when the project was completely ready to be announced. We did that in September 2023.

The cable is fully funded from a financing standpoint. It has a contract in force with Xtera, which leads a group of vendors. It also leads a turnkey process, in which EGS is involved and with whom we finished all the marine surveys of what we call the 'southern arm.'

The marine survey for this main southern trunk, which ends in Barranquilla, Colombia, Puerto Limón in Costa Rica, and María Chiquita in Panama, was concluded on December 15.

The marine survey for the northern stretch was contracted with Fugro. This survey started on January 24 and we’re now 90% advanced. 

I would say that in no more than 8-10 days, we will finish the marine survey for the northern part. That would complete the entire survey for phase one, which is the first 7,000km of the system.

BNamericas: What about the equipment and electronics part?

Montero: We’re very advanced with the issue of equipment. All the electronics are already in production. Long-term production is underway with Xtera, which is doing the wet part of our project.

The submarine fiber is developed by Nexans, and they are also already in production, in line with our own needs and times.

We have the cable projected to be ready for service [RFS] in Q3 of 2025. This is for the southern arm, which let's say is our main trunk with 24 fiber pairs. 

About three months later, in Q4, we will have the RFS for the northern part, as the project began with parallel schedules.

We’re all on track and on schedule. We’re very advanced in permit issues. Most of the landing stations are also defined.

BNamericas: What’s the strategy for these landing stations?

Montero: To try to take advantage of the existing structure as long as that structure serves the purposes of the cable not only technically, but from a strategic standpoint.

That is, it has to be a sufficiently suitable infrastructure that doesn’t affect the neutrality that we promise for the system.

Remember that our first anchor customer is AT&T, so the two stations we’re using in Florida, one in Vero Beach, the other in North Miami, Hollywood, are theirs. We also use their stations in Miramar, Puerto Rico, and in Butler’s Bay on St Croix.

As for the rest, so far in the process we have decided to build three stations, which are going to be our own.

BNamericas: Which ones?

Montero: They are María Chiquita, in Panama because it’s a strategic issue, it’s a terminal point for our southern trunk. There are 24 fiber pairs, so it was important that this infrastructure was proprietary.

Also, for Puerto Cortés, in Honduras, we decided to build our own station. This is in the process as well. And in Puerto Barrios, in Guatemala, due to a diversity issue, we didn’t want to use the existing infrastructure.

All the other stations are from an anchor or a partner that had enough and adequate infrastructure to make it available to our cable.

In Panama it was also crucial to have this station because in later phases of the cable we plan to cross the country from coast to coast, and take the system out through the Pacific and going south. We’re thinking about connecting Colombia, Ecuador and Peru along the Pacific coast.

And we have some subsequent phases. 

In the Caribbean, we’re connecting Puerto Rico, St Croix and the Dominican Republic, but the system will be ready with branching units targeting multiple additional markets, which we plan to connect in future phases.

Many of them are accelerating, there’s a lot of interest from local markets. The cable is ready, for example to connect with Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dutch Antilles.

BNamericas: What are the prospects for these future expansions?

Montero: Virtually any island in the Caribbean can be connected in future phases. Obviously, this depends a lot on the evolution we’re having, the size of the markets, and how we can group them.

Because the great challenge in the Caribbean is that there are many islands, small islands, that do not have, let's say, sufficient critical mass. But if we can group them into hubs, it makes sense to deploy the cable. And it depends a lot also on partnerships and everything that we’re developing.

But we felt the urgency of making a cut, and that is why in September we decided to announce this first phase of 7,000km, 24 pairs of fiber in the south, 12 pairs in the north, for a system whose minimum capacity, according to the design, is 650Tbps. On the longest route, which today is Vero Beach-Puerto Limón, we achieve a capacity of 18Tbps per fiber pair.

BNamericas: As anchor tenant, does AT&T have exclusive use of fiber pairs in the system?

Montero: AT&T, in addition to being an anchor-tenant, is an important strategic partner because for us to resolve the issue of all landing points, in all US territories, that was strategically important.

AT&T initially has capacity for its territories, say Puerto Rico and St. Croix, and we also give them a priority right to use capacity in the event they require it in other markets. 

But they don't have a reserved fiber pair in the entire system.

BNamericas: Are there other clients signed besides AT&T?

Montero: Yes, we cannot disclose them yet, but we have several anchors. The landing partners, let's say from Colombia, from Mexico, are already defined. The one from the Dominican Republic is quite advanced.

There are some fundamental criteria in this selection: one is that there’s a beach manhole infrastructure to adequately serve the cable. Also, that there’s enough capillarity, backhaul providers already arriving at the site, because obviously what interests us is that everyone can connect.

And then in some special cases we have evaluated the possibility of having edge datacenters close to the facilities so we can integrate into them.

BNamericas: In Panama, Sparkle just inaugurated its Digital Gateway datacenter on the opposite coast.

Montero: Yes, it’s on the Pacific. But in reality, the landing station in Panama becomes super strategic for us because it’s not only where the end of the southern trunk of our cable will land, but also because it will be a pass-through station to the Pacific.

What we’re thinking is having our own underground coast-to-coast ring in Panama, and certainly we’re evaluating some partners so that we can develop it together. 

But obviously we’re going to reach the Panama Digital Gateway site. It’s also a value bet for them.

BNamericas: What’s the profile of the clients that you’re targeting?

Montero: We’re agnostic. But the typical profile in this phase is operators, global and regional operators.

Some of the carriers in Latin America use cables they own primarily for their local operation needs, like for their mobile operators. But they are old cables, with high latencies, with very little capacity for growth or scalability.

What we see is that Latin America has been neglected for several years in capacity. The markets in the region have been served by few systems. 

And then other potential clients include ISPs, OTTs, hyperscalers, datacenters.

With everything that’s coming from artificial intelligence, streaming, IoT, all the capacity needs, what we see now [in terms of data] will increase by 10 times. 

That's why we designed a very scalable cable, with very low latencies.

BNamericas: What’s the total investment in the project?

Montero: The investment is high, it’s a project of more than US$300mn, US$400mn.