Digicel Group has announced that its new subsea fibre cable Deep Blue One serving the Caribbean and the northeast tip of South America is now live, which is big news not only for the four countries connected to it, but also potentially for offshore oil and gas rigs along its path.
Deep Blue One is a 2,000-km subsea cable connecting French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago. Declared ready for service last month, Deep Blue One was developed and built by Digicel in partnership with Orange, which owns a fibre pair on the system, and is also providing landing facilities in French Guiana. The system has five branching units, with two to eight fibre pairs per segment offering a minimum capacity of 12 Tbps per pair.
The cable was designed to interconnect with Orange’s Kanawa subsea cable that runs between French Guiana and Martinique, as well as Digicel’s existing Southern Caribbean Fiber (SCF) system that connects Caribbean islands between Trinidad & Tobago and Puerto Rico. Digicel reportedly rebranded the SCF system as Deep Blue last month.
In addition to bringing extra capacity to the four connected countries, Deep Blue One also presents Digicel with an opportunity to connect offshore oil and gas rigs, supporting the growing energy sector in the region and fostering collaboration among key stakeholders in the oil and gas industry, said Digicel CEO Marcelo Cataldo.
“Subsea fibre has long been the backbone of global connectivity, and Deep Blue One is set to serve as a catalyst for the next wave of economic development in the region,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.