Spotlight: The LatAm subsea cables under study and being built

Latin America and the Caribbean have several submarine cable projects under study and others now being built, either to add new routes or to upgrade lines that are reaching the end of their useful life.

The region has 70 national, regional and international cables installed, but many of them are outdated or operating near to full capacity.

Several submarine cable projects started operations in 2021, with perhaps the most significant of them being EllaLink, the first route to connect South America and Europe.

Also launched last year was the Mistral cable, also known as the South Pacific Submarine Cable (SPSC), owned by Telxius and América Móvil, which links Guatemala to Chile; the Malbec submarine cable (owned by Globenet and Meta), which connects Brazil to Argentina; and a new Claro Colombia submarine cable to connect the island of San Andrés with the mainland.

However, the appetite for international capacity continues to grow and so do investments in submarine cables.

These are the main projects currently under study or already being built in the region:

HUMBOLDT CABLE

This US$650mn project is designed to connect Latin America with Asia-Pacific through Chile via a 14,810km submarine cable.

Chilean infrastructure fund Desarrollo País recently chose Singapore’s H2 Cable to be a strategic partner for the system.

Humboldt will connect Valparaíso in Chile with Sydney in Australia, with branches initially planned to Juan Fernández island, Easter Island and New Zealand.

Construction will begin on the Humboldt project in 2023 with the aim of completing it in 2024.

FIRMINA

Google has announced its second proprietary submarine cable, Firmina, which will connect the US to Argentina.

The cable is designed to support demand for Google services. Its first proprietary cable, Curie, links the US and Chile and is recognized by Google as vital infrastructure for the provision of cloud services in the region.

SubCom will be responsible for building and installing the cable, which will have branches to Brazil and Uruguay.

Firmina will be 12,000km long and is expected to be completed by 2023.

GALAPAGOS CABLE SYSTEM

Ecuador's government selected Xtera to extend a 1,300km submarine cable from the mainland to the Galapagos islands with a total investment of US$50mn.

Work is currently underway on the design and engineering stage, which is expected to be completed early this year. The project is expected to go into service in 2023.

The installation of the cable will benefit the more than 30,000 people who live in the archipelago.

ANTARCTICA

Two projects to connect Antarctica are currently being studied.

Argentina's Silica Networks and its subsidiaries in Chile and Brazil invested US$2mn in a feasibility study for a submarine cable between Puerto Williams, in Chile, and Ushuaia, in Argentina, for which the best route across the Beagle Channel is being evaluated. From there, the plan is to extend the cable to San Jorge Island in Antarctica.

Similarly, Desarrollo País, Chilean telecommunications regulator Subtel and the government of Magallanes region signed an agreement to study the deployment of a submarine cable to Antarctica to Chile.

The agreement will pave the way for a market consultation process for the preparation of a technical, legal, economic and financial feasibility study of the line.

CARIBBEAN

In September 2021, Digicel signed an agreement with Orange to extend the Deep Blue One submarine cable from Trinidad and Tobago to French Guiana. The investment was not disclosed.

The new system will complement Digicel's current Southern Caribbean Fiber (SCF) network, which has approximately 3,000km of submarine cable, connecting 20 islands in the Eastern Caribbean and possibly connecting to Miami and New York in the future.

Digicel has already announced that it will seek new opportunities in the region.