Deep Blue Cable eyes Cuba landing for Pan-Caribbean cable

Deep Blue Cable is eyeing a potential landing in Cuba for its high-speed fiber optic cable, which would be used by broadband providers and internet companies.

Dennis O'Brien, head of Deep Blue Cable and telco Digicel, was last week reported as saying that the project was intended to go into operation by the end of 2019. The cost of the rollout could rise to US$450mn, O'Brien said, according to daily The Irish Times.

In a first phase the cable would run west from Naples, Florida, and go around Cuba before turning south and east towards the Caymans. However, there could be two possible spurs off the main cable onto Cuba.

An initial 12 fiber landings over the next 30 months include the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Eventually, Deep Blue hopes to make up to 40 landings, bringing in major Latin American markets such as Panama and Colombia.

The company plans to sell cable access on a wholesale basis to broadband providers and will then be able to sell high-speed internet services directly to customers.

Submarine cable expert and consultant Julian Rawle told BNamericas that the project is rather ambitious due to the number of landings. He said the last time someone attempted something similar was when the ARCOS-1 cable was built back in 2001. Rawle added that the initial 12-landing objective is feasible, but finding investors for a Pan-Caribbean system would take time.

US EXPANDS MILITARY CABLE

The Pentagon has awarded Texas-based Xtera Communications a US$43mn contract to build a 750-mile underwater fiber optic cable between Guantanamo naval base in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

This will be a backup spur to one linking Guantanamo to South Florida that went live last year.

Rawle said this is not a commercial project and the US military is unlikely to allow it to be a mixed-use cable.

Given the number of submarine cables that go past Cuba, many of these could be branched to serve the island once the market opens up fully, said Rawle. However, the consultant underscored that this market is not ready at the moment, although the Deep Blue Project would not be dependent on a landing in Cuba.