With route surveys for its pan-Caribbean undersea cable planned to start this or early next quarter, and manufacturing and installation continuing this year and into 2019, Deep Blue Cable continues to make waves, spreading the word about the advantages of its network over the region’s older systems, including significantly higher design capacity, lower unit costs, and lower latency through direct connectivity.
The Deep Blue Cable team was in full force at International Telecoms Week (ITW) 2018, which took place May 6-9 in Chicago. ITW is the number one annual meeting platform for the global wholesale telecoms community. To help kick off the conference, Deep Blue co-sponsored a networking event with Aqua Comms and Ciena that took place Sunday evening at Howells and Hood, a Michigan Avenue restaurant located at the base of the legendary Tribune Tower. The networking event was attended by more than 250 industry experts, organisation delegates and friends.
Deep Blue Cable also recently attended iCT Americas, at the Hilton Aruba Caribbean Resort & Casino. iCT Americas, an ideal vehicle for Deep Blue to convey breaking developments about its pan-Caribbean subsea network to industry stakeholders, converges CIOs, CTOs, IT and networking professionals from utilities, government and private enterprise companies, as well as representatives from technology vendors and service providers.
This fall will find the Deep Blue team at Submarine Networks World 2018, taking place September 24 – 26, at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre in Singapore. Submarine Networks World is the annual conference for decision-makers in the subsea communications sector, offering a dedicated platform for the community to present the latest projects such as the Deep Blue cable system, exchange knowledge, and develop new strategies and partnerships that will ultimately go move the industry forward.
With terrestrial cable landing surveys completed, Deep Blue is engaging landing parties on many of the Caribbean islands. Initial business enquiries in the Deep Blue subsea network are going strong and the company continues to engage with operators interested in significant capacity or fibre purchases. While Deep Blue has 22 landings planned in Phase I, the system ultimately has more than 40 landings planned in the Caribbean, mainland U.S., and South America.
Digicel Founder and Chairman, Denis O’Brien, whose company is a significant partner and anchor client of Deep Blue Cable, with many interests and a long history in the Caribbean, was recently featured in an article published in the London Times. As the story relates, O’Brien is transforming Digicel from a pure-play mobile operator into a fully-fledged communications company, servicing business and domestic customers across mobile, broadband and cable. The Times article also describes how O’Brien is embarking on a buy-and-build strategy, with Digicel rolling out fibre in its key markets, including the Caribbean, which will fortify connectivity options for the Deep Blue subsea cable system.
Deep Blue Cable CEO, Stephen Scott, discussed the current status of the project as well as the state of the Caribbean communications market in a recent Capacity Media interview with Natalie Bannerman.
“The only way to create a market and to some extent create an affordable product for so many of the islands and countries is to have a competitive system,” Scott stated. “In addition to the resiliency offered by a second system, it will help to alleviate risk.”
As Scott pointed out in the interview, the price of Caribbean capacity is at least 12 times more expensive than transatlantic capacity, six times more expensive than transpacific capacity, and 2.5 times more expensive than capacity between the US and Brazil.
“Alternative subsea networks ultimately mean that prices will go down,” he added. “Also, opening the market to competition provides options to improve communications and make connectivity more cost-effective, enabling business growth opportunities for Caribbean-based and multinational organisations.”
