Deep Blue Cable says it will extend its submarine cable system of the same name to Colombia and Panama. According to the cable system operator, Deep Blue cable system's Phase 1 extension will affect the project's timeline.
Deep Blue Cable originally announced an in-service date of fourth quarter 2019 for its Deep Blue Cable system in July (see "Deep Blue Cable chooses TE SubCom for Caribbean to Americas submarine cable"). With the extension to Colombia and Panama, the projected in-service date is now second quarter 2020. Route survey activities for the pan-Caribbean undersea cable will begin in first quarter 2018, with continued manufacturing and installation throughout 2018 and into 2019.
Deep Blue submarine network's initial landing points are now in 14 markets throughout the region and include the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, and Turks & Caicos Islands, as well as Colombia and Panama. The subsea cable has two diverse landings in the U.S., including what Deep Blue asserts is the first landing of a cable on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Covering almost 12,000 km, the Deep Blue submarine cable network will have as many as eight fiber pairs, an initial capacity of 6 Tbps, and ultimate capacity of about 20 Tbps per fiber pair. According to Deep Blue, the undersea cable system will deliver increased design capacity, reduced unit costs, low latency through direct connectivity, and improved route planning and installation techniques, as well as other reliability improvements that will help Caribbean's businesses and consumers.
Developing Caribbean countries that are seeing increased demand for advanced telecom services, but are currently dependent on technologically and economically unimproved fiber-optic connectivity, will benefit from the service the Deep Blue cable system will provide, says the cable system operator.
"With the planned extension of our subsea fiber-optic cable system to Colombia and Panama, Deep Blue underscores its commitment to the long-term solution of providing advanced subsea connectivity across the Caribbean islands and to the Americas," said Stephen Scott, Deep Blue Cable's CEO. "The Deep Blue subsea cable network will have a profound impact not only on the communications ecosystem of the Caribbean, but also on the economic growth potential of an underserved region. Now more than ever, the Caribbean needs resilient communications infrastructure."
Because of the region's recent extreme weather, Deep Blue Cable is continuing to examine the system's design to minimize environmental and connectivity issues in the future.
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