Level 3 Communications has made an extension to the SAC-1 submarine cable with a new branch to a cable station in Buenaventura on Colombia's Pacific coast near Cali, according to a recent FCC filing.
Today, the SAC cable system links St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, with Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro and Santos, Brazil; Las Toninas, Argentina; Valparaiso, Chile; Lurin, Peru; and Fort Amador, Panama. The cable is managed on a non-common carrier basis.
Operated by Level 3's Global Crossing Telecommunications Inc. subsidiary, the SAC cable system will be connected to Colombia by the insertion of the SAC Colombia spur between the existing Segment H cable stub and a new cable station to be constructed at Punta Bazan in Buenaventura, Colombia. The new SAC Colombia spur will have a design capacity of 4.5 Terabits and initial capacity of 400 Gbps.
Under the current structure, Level 3 Colombia will own the new cable station in Buenaventura, Colombia, and Segment H extending from Buenaventura to a branching unit off the Colombian coast. In addition, GCTI will continue to own the cable station in St. Croix and the portion of SAC extending from St. Croix to a point one-half mile beyond the limit of the U.S. territorial sea.
According to the filing, the remaining portions of SAC in international waters or in the territorial seas of Argentina, Brazil, Panama, and Peru will continue to be owned by other wholly-owned, indirect subsidiaries of Level 3 Communications.
Expanding this cable comes at a time when Level 3 is looking to further its growth in the Latin American services market. During the fourth quarter, the service provider reported that Latin America enterprise revenues declined to $150 year-over-year, but for the full year rose 9 percent to $614 million. However, now that it has completed its purchase of tw telecom, Level 3 could potentially support existing tw telecom customers that may have had to use another carrier to get into the region before.
For more:
- see this FCC filing
Related articles:
Level 3's Q4 enterprise service revenues offset declines in data center segment
Level 3's Patel: Dark fiber opportunities are on the rise
Level 3 brings MPLS services to Globalstar
Level 3 taps company veteran Crouch to head up EMEA efforts
Level 3 adds Google's Cloud platform to its ecosystem