“Deep
Blue Cable has great confidence in TE SubCom and its ability to build a
state-of-the-art sub-sea cable system that will provide long overdue advanced
connectivity across the Caribbean islands and to the Americas”
CEO of Deep Blue Cable,
Stephen Scott, in a press release.
Looks
like the fibre-optic cable network monopoly is being broken in the Caribbean.
More interestingly, Digicel may be behind this push!!!
Deep Blue Cable, a company formed and
located in St Lucia is the latest entrant into the Caribbean with an aim to
interconnect all of the Caribbean islands as reported in the article “New
Sub-Sea Cable Network To Dock In Jamaica En Route To Miami”, published
Friday August 11, 2017 by Steven Jackson, The
Jamaica Gleaner.
Deep Blue Cable, a North American-led
company formed in St Lucia, aims to break the fibre optic monopoly by the two
carriers in the region; Digicel Group and Cable & Wireless Communications.
They're partnering with TE SubCom, a subsidiary of TE Connectivity, to build
out their fiber optic ring to interconnect some 12 Caribbean countries.
They
plan to compete with the two carriers by offering:
1. Higher
capacity
2. Lower
unit costs
3. Lower
latency
Effectively
this will dwarf Digicel's Fiber optic Network that powers their Digicel Cable
TV network as described in my Geezam blog
article entitled “How
Digicel Play will spread the Gospel of Fiber Optic this Christmas”.
Deep Blue Cable started surveying the
Caribbean for the most feasible route in August 2017.
They
aim to start installation in September 2018, with plans to start selling
service by December 2019. The main markets they plan to enter have the
following telecoms market opportunity:
1. Puerto
Rico at US$3-billion
2. Dominican
Republic at US$1.9 billion
3. Haiti
at US$700 million
4. Trinidad
at US$650 million
5. Jamaica
at US$600 million
6. Cayman
Islands at US$150 million
7. Turks
& Caicos at US$50 million
So
what are the details of this coming fiber optic offering by Deep Blue Cable?
Deep Blue Cable - A CWC
Rival built for a 5G future in the Caribbean
Turns
out the Deep Blue Cable, TE SubCom
partnership has some interesting details. Here are some interesting facts about
Deep Blue's Fiber Optic
Deployment:
1. The
Fiber optic rein will be around 12,000km
2. It
will be deployed in two phases
3. Will
consist of eight fibre pairs
4. May
cost US$960 million
This
estimated price is based on Digicel Group's reported US$16 million to run a 200
km sub-sea fibre cable from Haiti to connect to an existing one running to the
Caribbean. Since Deep Blue's cable is nearly 60 times that length at 12,000km,
this will at least cost them at least US$960 million, if you do the math.
TE
Subcom clearly is doing most of the heavy-lifting as shown in this video:
Digicel
Chairman and CEO Denis O'Brien may be footing this massive buildout, with an
aim to launch in 2020 as reported in “Digicel
Founder Behind New Telecom - Denis O'Brien Main Shareholder In Deep Blue Cable”,
published Wednesday August 16, 2017 by Steven Jackson, The Jamaica Gleaner.
By
way of comparison to give you an idea of the scale of this project, here are
the stats for CWC and Digicel's Fiber Optic Networks:
1. CWC's
sub-sea fibre optic cable network is 48,000 km
2. CWC's terrestrial fibre is 38,000 km of terrestrial
fibre
3. FLOW,
the cable company acquired by CWC, had 18,000 km of sub-sea fibre optic cable
network
4. FLOW
also has 21,000 km terrestrial fibre
5. Digicel
Group sub-sea fibre optic cable network
is 3,000 km, which it either acquired or built
Deep Blue Cable is clearly being
built for a 5G Future as explained in my Geezam
blog article entitled “5G Networks
with Renewable Energy, Fiber Optic Waveguides and AI 5G Networks with Renewable
Energy, Fiber Optic Waveguides and AI”
Each
fiber optic pair will have an initial capacity of 6 Tb/s, finally maxing out at
20Tbps per fibre pair upon completion. Phase one will see deployment in 12
Caribbean countries. This includes such notable countries as:
1. Cayman
Islands
2. Curacao
3. The
Dominican Republic
4. Haiti
5. Jamaica
6. Puerto
Rico
7. Trinidad
and Tobago
8. Turks
& Caicos Islands
9. Florida,
USA
With
a total of 40 landings in certain selected countries, they are making sure they
have connectivity on par with their rivals. For instance, they plan to land
their fiber optic cables at five locations in Jamaica as follows:
1. 2
landing in proximity to Kingston
2. 2
landing in proximity to Ocho Rios
3. 1
landing in proximity to Montego Bay
Already,
they’ve made some adjustment to their projected Phase 1 outlay and plan to
include Colombia and Panama as part of that deployment, pushing back their
timeline by a few months as noted in the article “Deep
Blue Cable To Extend Network”,
published Friday November 3, 201 by Steven Jackson, The Jamaica Gleaner.
After
interconnecting those 12 Caribbean countries, in Phase 2 they then plan to
interconnect some 28 Caribbean countries and then North and South American
countries. TE SubCom's vice president of sales, Mike Rieger, was quoted as
saying that Deep Blue Cable will,
quote: “satisfy not only the current spike in demand for connectivity in
developing Caribbean countries, but also future requirements driven by
projected growth”.
So
December 2019 plans to be an interesting year, as by 2020, the Caribbean may go
5G.
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