Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Thursday, October 18, 2018

Carriers' Map 2018

The submarine cable business in a scenario of price reduction and variety of actors

Carriers' Map 2018  - Credit: © 2018 Convergencialatina
Carriers' Map 2018 - Credit: © 2018 Convergencialatina

The submarine cable segment is experiencing a moment of renewal, with four layings that were added to the offer for Latin America in the first half of 2018: Telxius’ BRUSA; Google Monet, Antel Uruguay, Algar Telecom and Angola Cables; the SACS, which for the first time is connecting South Amerca-Africa, of Angola Cables; and the Tannat, of Antel Uruguay and Google. These systems came into operation months after the start of operations of Seabras-1, of Seaborn Networks, in 2017, which had already produced a reduction in the price of wholesale capacity in Brazil, to the point that the cost for the San Pablo-United States or Rio de Janeiro- United States routes is four or five times lower than the one offered, for example, in the Buenos Aires-United States section.

 The diversification of competition -not only in the number of cables, but also in the variety of actors involved- promises to at least continue until 2021. This year the construction of the ARBR of Seaborn Networks and Grupo Werthein, between Brazil and Argentina, will begin; Google’s Junior would be activated in 2018 for the Brazilian market; and other projects for Latin America, such as Aurora, of FP Telecoms, from Florida to Ecuador, via Panama; the Curie, of Google, traveling the Pacific from the US west coast to Chile; the new Globenet line to reach Argentina from Brazil; and the Chilean government's initiative to connect to Asia via Australia and New Zealand.

 This new generation of systems not only has to support increases in capacity demand of more than 50% year-to-year in Latin America, but much of this demand comes from OTTs and other "hyper buyers", which implies different types of demands. Even in the design of new deployments technological innovations that "customize" fiber pairs for the needs of different clients are being incorporated: while carriers, ISPs and corporate clients require accessible bandwidth to be competitive in the region, the "hyper buyers" handle larger scales, thus they prioritize on the guarantee of ultra-high capacity throughout the life of the submarine cable.

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