Artículo original por James Whittaker para Cayman Compass
A multi-million dollar upgrade to Cayman’s main subsea cable will help secure the island’s digital connectivity for at least the next decade, according to telecoms giant Liberty Networks.
The improvements to the ageing Maya-1 cable come amid increasing anxiety about the island’s tech infrastructure and resilience.
The reconfigured cable system, branded Maya 1.2, should allay public fears about the threat of a digital blackout, Liberty Networks’ Carmine Sorrentino, chief commercial and operating officer, said in an interview.
He said the upgrades would improve quality, increase internet speeds and bolster national resilience. And he insisted the idea that the cable would have been ‘retired’ without an alternative was a ‘myth’.
The specific costs were not revealed but the project is part of a $250m investment in regional subsea cables.
It also creates the potential for a third cable into Cayman via Liberty’s pan-regional MANTA network.
That is not part of the current investment, but Sorrentino said the potential exists to add a branching route into Cayman in the future if desired.
Collectively, he said the Maya 1-2 upgrades and reconfiguration double capacity on the route, creating enough room for significant business and tech growth in Cayman. The project will be completed early in 2026.
The reconfigured cable will bypass Mexico in a shorter loop that connects Cayman and Honduras directly to the US, bringing faster internet speeds.
“It is a huge investment from our side,” he said, indicating that it demonstrated a commitment to Cayman despite its small population size.
“Practically, you get a kind of brand-new cable for the next 10 years that give you double the capacity that you had available yesterday.”
A Cayman Islands government funded report, made public last year, highlighted national security concerns around Cayman’s dependence on two subsea systems — the 25-year-old Maya-1 cable and the similarly aging link to Jamaica.
A Compass investigation highlighted the risks to the economy if those systems failed, with 99% of the island’s data — from international bank transfers to television and overseas calls — travelling through those cables.
Government consultants Grant Thornton recommended investing tens of millions of dollars in new cables – owned and operated by a government company – amid concerns about the future of Maya-1, which it described as “the lifeblood of the economy”. More recently Cabinet approved plans to draft new legislation to advance the project.
Upgrade adds speed and capacity
Against that backdrop, Liberty’s upgrade promises some immediate relief.
According to a company press release, the upgrades will expand capacity up to 4 terabits per second in each direction, more than double today’s capacity.
Latency – the tiny delay in sending and receiving data – will be reduced, meaning faster, more responsive connections.
The system will be upgraded with next-generation Submarine Line Terminal Equipment, allowing more efficient use of bandwidth and supporting faster 100G and 400G connections, the telecoms company said.
The investment does not immediately address one of the other key concerns raised in that report – the theory that Cayman needs at least one, if not two, additional links to provide resilience because of the multi-million-dollar consequences of a digital blackout.
Sorrentino defended the record of the current infrastructure, saying outages were extremely uncommon, even in hurricanes. And he said the MAYA system had some built-in redundancy in that it pipes data into Cayman on a northern and southern route, creating options in the case of a fault. Taking the Mexico detour out of the route also reduces the capacity for problems in the new configuration.
Option for third cable
The company is also investing in a pan-regional MANTA network and is technically able to add a branching route to Cayman that would provide that spare capacity.
“We are installing a branching unit on that cable to land it in Cayman in the future; we are actually planning for that. We can decide to accelerate that and drop a third cable here.
“This is another opportunity for the future,” Sorrentino said, adding that additional cables were always helpful for resilience, depending on cost and priorities.
He said there has been no direct discussion with government at this point, though he is in Cayman for talks with business leaders this week. But he said this week’s announcement should resolve doubts about the immediate future of the Maya system.
Ray Collins, Liberty’s head of infrastructure in Latin America, said submarine networks are “critical infrastructure in the region. “MAYA-1.2 embodies our commitment to advancing the region’s digital ecosystem, creating a more powerful, efficient, and resilient backbone for connectivity,” he said in a press release.
“For more than 28 years, we have reliably served the connectivity needs of the Cayman Islands, and with this investment, together with MANTA, we are ensuring those needs will be met for generations to come.”
Liberty Networks, a subsidiary of Liberty Latin America, operates nearly 50,000 kilometers of subsea fiber and 17,000 kilometers of terrestrial networks across more than 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
SOBRE LIBERTY NETWORKS
Liberty Networks, parte de Liberty Latin America, es un proveedor líder de infraestructura y conectividad empresarial en América Latina y el Caribe, que conecta más de 30 países con casi 50.000 kilómetros de cable submarino de fibra óptica y 17.000 kilómetros de redes terrestres. En Liberty Networks, nos asociamos con empresas, operadores y comunidades empresariales, aprovechando nuestra amplia infraestructura de red, portafolio de soluciones de próxima generación y red de centros de datos para proporcionar una base sólida que permita el éxito empresarial en toda la región. Para obtener más información sobre Liberty Networks, visita www.libertynetworks.com y síguenos en LinkedIn, X, Instagram, y YouTube.
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