wiredInUSA September 2017

Cable heading for Cuba?

Deep Blue Cable, a Caribbean subsea telecommunications infrastructure company, is considering a landing site on Cuba for its high speed fiber optic cable. The company has already begun preparatory work for the fiber network, which aims to be operational by the end of 2019. An initial 12 fiber landings over the next 30 months are proposed for markets including the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad and Tobago. Eventually, Deep Blue hopes to make up to 40 landings, bringing in major Latin American markets such as Panama and Colombia. Deep Blue plans to sell cable access on awholesalebasis tobroadband

providers, and will sell high speed internet services directly to customers.

Deep Blue also plans to market its services directly to major internet companies such as Facebook or Skype, whose services consume large amounts of data. Deep Blue’s proposed first phase fiber would run west from Naples, go around Cuba, then turn south and east towards the Caymans with two possible spurs off the main cable onto Cuba. Deep Blue founder Denis O’Brien also owns Digicel, a mobile phone network provider operating throughout the Caribbean and repeatedly linked with Cuba. Mr O’Brien has described the islandas an “interesting” investment prospect.

wiredInUSA - September 2017

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