Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Fibralink Jamaica Limited is investing another US$80 million (J$5.72 billion) to expand its submarine fibre-optic network from Jamaica to Cartagena, Colombia, via Florida.

The company, a subsidiary of Columbus Communications - owned by Canadian John Risley and Michael Lee Chin through the Barbados subsidiary of AIC - has already invested some US$43 million for the first phase of its Caribbean fibre-optic cable project.

FibraLink Jamaica's CEO, Richard Pardy, said the laying of this second phase of cable could begin in "a matter of weeks", since his company had obtained the necessary clearance from the National Environment and Planning Agency for work to be done, Prospect and Bull Bay.

Total system

Pardy explained that the total system for phase two costs US$80 million, but the Jamaica leg will cost about US$10 million.

In the first phase of the project, Jamaica was linked to Florida, via The Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

"We are building a system from Bull Bay in St. Thomas to Morant Point which goes offshore some 70 kilometres into two directions," Pardy explained. "A portion of it goes to Boca Raton in Florida and the other portion to Cartagena, Colombia," he said.

An international marine operator, Tyco Marine, has been contracted to lay the cable, he said.

Dr. Conrad Douglas, principal of Conrad Douglas and Associates, the company which conducted the environmental assessment for the project, explained that instead of trenching across the beaches, the strategy will be to deliver from the seafloor to the land via a hole.

Pardy said that the expansion by FibraLink will increase bandwidth capacity to the island by a factor of about 60 over the current 2.5 gigabits per second, or enough capacity to give every household in Jamaica access to broadband.

But he regards this entire Caribbean and the Americas project as even more than improving bandwidth.

"It's not a capacity issue, it's a restructuring system or a backup system," he said. "We are living in a zone prone to disasters, earthquake and hurricanes. We spend so that we can survive a hurricane and it's critical that we maintain contact with the international world."