A New Submarine Cable Build for Level 3

With its earnings now in the black at last, Level 3 Communications clearly has found some new flexibility with its capex.  Today they announced plans to build new fiber under the waves for the first time in many years.  No, not transatlantic or transpacific, but rather down where all the action has been lately for them in Latin America.

In partnership with the EMCALI, they are building a new Pacific undersea cable route to Colombia. It will connect directly to Cali, with EMCALI handling the terrestrial portion from a new landing point on the coast to the inland city.  Level 3 has been investing pretty heavily in its Colombia footprint, both network and data center.

Not mentioned in the PR (but hopefully to be clarified) are a few minor points. The first is where the other end (or ends) of this cable happens to be.  But as Level 3 already has South American Crossing, perhaps what we’re talking about here is a new branch for that cable system – as I see on Level 3’s network map that it lands in Panama and Peru, but not yet in Colombia.  Level 3’s Colombian connectivity comes from the Caribbean side right now, and via leased capacity on other cables at that.

The other unmentioned items are the price and the timeframe, but all will become clear in time I assume.

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Categories: Internet Backbones · Undersea cables