Jamaica’s Subsea Cable Strategy: Positioning the Island as the Caribbean’s Digital Backbone

A signed Letter of Intent with Trans Americas Fiber System and a government push to diversify Jamaica’s cable infrastructure are reshaping the competitive case for the island as a digital services hub in the Caribbean.

Innovation Report | Caribbean Special Report

On 3 February 2026, at a ceremony witnessed by senior ministers and executives,
the Government of Jamaica signed a Letter of Intent with Trans Americas Fiber System for a Subsea Cable Project, which aims to strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure.
The signing marked the most concrete step yet in Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness’s stated ambition to transform Jamaica into the digital hub of the Caribbean, an objective that has taken on fresh urgency following the destruction wrought on the island’s above-ground telecommunications network by Hurricane Melissa in late 2025. For investors, BPO operators, and fintech builders working across the region, the question is no longer whether Jamaica needs new subsea infrastructure, but how quickly the political intent can be converted into cable in the water.

The Letter of Intent was signed by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, Transport and Telecommunications, Kedesha Campbell Rochester, and Chief Executive Officer of Trans Americas Fiber System, Julio Bran,
with
Minister of Energy, Transport and Telecommunications, Hon. Daryl Vaz, and Chief Operating Officer of Trans Americas Fiber System, Jose Luis Rivera, serving as witnesses.
Speaking at Jamaica House,
Prime Minister Holness described the occasion as “not simply another infrastructure project,” calling it “a strategic intervention in preparing our people to succeed in a modern, technologically driven world.”
He linked the investment directly to post-hurricane economic recovery, noting that his administration was “using this moment as an opportunity to make strategic investments that will ignite economic growth and strengthen our national foundations.”

Julio Bran, CEO of Trans Americas Fiber, said the company is proud to partner with the Government of Jamaica to help close the digital divide, noting that Trans Americas Fiber is now building a 7,000-kilometre subsea cable across the region with the project approximately 60 percent complete.
That broader network, known as TAM-1 (Trans Americas Mesh 1), is a system of considerable scale.
The initiative envisages a dedicated spur connecting Jamaica to the in-development TAM-1 network via a purpose-built branching unit, delivering a fibre pair with up to 20 terabits per second of capacity, while the main 650 terabits per second system is set to land in Florida, Colombia, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama.

AT&T is the anchor tenant and landing party for the system in all US jurisdictions.

A Concentrated Cable Landscape and the Case for Diversity

Currently, 54 percent of Jamaica’s internet traffic goes through one subsea cable, which means that competition and price structure may result in prices higher than the regional average, leading to lower access.
That single-cable dependence was exposed further when Hurricane Melissa damaged terrestrial infrastructure in October 2025, compelling the government to accelerate its infrastructure planning timeline. Prime Minister Holness was candid about the consequences:
Jamaica does not necessarily have a coverage problem in terms of signal and fibre reaching a large part of the island, but whether people can afford to get on and stay on is the big issue because of cost.

Jamaica is currently the landing point for six cables, though most connect to nearby islands and many are towards the end of their expected lifespans.
Specifically,
ALBA-1 connects the island to Cuba and Venezuela; the Cayman-Jamaica Fiber System (CJFS) connects it to the Cayman Islands; FibraLink connects to Haiti and the Dominican Republic; and the East-West Cable (EWC) also runs from Jamaica to the Dominican Republic and the Virgin Islands.

Jamaica’s two subsea links that connect outside of the Caribbean are the Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1) system running from Florida to Colombia, and the ALBA-1 system between Cuba and Venezuela.
The Jamaican branch on TAM-1 would be a meaningful addition to that picture.
Minister Vaz described TAM-1 as a “unique opportunity” to connect Jamaica to a new cable system, noting that it is nearly operational and the Jamaican branch can be installed relatively quickly, as the cable lies only 220 kilometres off the coast.

Prime Minister Holness said the undertaking places the government in a position to strategically shape the market so that prices and accessibility for the average citizen can improve.
He was explicit about the government’s role:
“It is not the intention of the Government to operate this,” the Prime Minister said, urging the private sector to come in and noting that what the government has done is “de-risk the investment and to ensure that we have put in enough redundancies in the system and diversification of cables, such that there is competition” resulting in lower prices for consumers.

Digicel, Flow, and the Operator Landscape

Digicel and Flow are the dominant ISPs and mobile operators in Jamaica, and are the primary investors in last-mile and backbone upgrades, with their network strategies shaping market access and wholesale opportunities.
Both operators have been active in the infrastructure space since Hurricane Melissa.
Liberty Latin America, the parent company of Flow, estimates that it will have to increase property and equipment expenditures during the fourth quarter of 2025 by between US$5 million and US$10 million, to approximately US$30 million, due to costs associated with post-hurricane recovery.
Meanwhile,
Digicel announced an agreement with highway company JNSHC for duct sharing in order to speed up the transition to an underground telecommunications network, which will provide greater resilience to climate events.

Digicel has also been building its own international subsea footprint.
Digicel Group activated its subsea fibre cable, Deep Blue One, in June 2024, with the investment designed to supercharge connectivity across the Caribbean and South America, particularly benefiting French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has reported that a 10 percent increase in fixed broadband penetration can result in up to 2.3 percent increase in GDP per capita, while a 10 percent increase in mobile broadband penetration can result in up to 2.8 percent increase in GDP per capita,
a figure that frames the economic stakes of each new cable investment.
Jamaica has advanced fibre coverage quickly in urban corridors, and both Flow and Digicel now pitch 150 to 600 Mbps mainstream plans,
but rural access and affordability remain persistent gaps that better international bandwidth pricing could help address over time.

BPO, Fintech, and the Demand Side of the Connectivity Argument

The investment case for subsea infrastructure improvement is inseparable from Jamaica’s broader digital economy ambitions.
Today, over 52,000 Jamaicans are employed in the global services sector, providing voice and non-voice services across key industries including financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, logistics, and retail.

Speaking at the Outsource2Jamaica Conference 2025, Prime Minister Holness emphasised that Jamaica has moved beyond its traditional BPO roots, making significant strides into Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), IT-enabled services, fintech, cybersecurity, software engineering, and data analytics.

With artificial intelligence expected to replace some lower-level BPO jobs, Jamaica is repositioning itself as a nearshore provider of higher value-added digital services, with investments in fibre, internet exchange points (IXPs), cloud and data infrastructure identified as key enablers of this new thrust.

For BPO and global services investors, competitive and resilient broadband is the first line item when assessing voice, back-office, and analytics hub viability.
A diversified, lower-cost international cable environment would directly reduce one of the most commonly cited barriers to sector expansion.

The demand context in the broader Caribbean is equally compelling.
With mobile penetration exceeding 131 percent, $18.4 billion in annual remittances, and significant unbanked populations, the region presents substantial opportunities for fintech innovation.

The Caribbean fintech sector has emerged as one of the region’s most dynamic industries, valued at approximately $1.2 billion in 2025, with growth projected at 18.5 percent compound annual growth rate through 2030, outpacing traditional banking sector expansion.
Digital remittance platforms, mobile wallets, and AI-driven fraud detection all depend on the same low-latency, high-reliability connectivity infrastructure that the TAM-1 spur is designed to strengthen.
Jamaica leads in the regional fintech landscape with its regulatory sandbox and JAM-DEX central bank digital currency,
positioning it as a natural anchor for Caribbean digital financial services, provided the infrastructure can keep pace with the regulatory ambition.

As part of a comprehensive digital strategy, Prime Minister Holness highlighted the establishment of the National AI Lab at the University of Technology (UTECH) and stressed the importance of similar facilities across the island.

Complementing this, the government has announced the creation of a new Information and Communications Technology Authority to provide the digital backbone of public sector modernisation, an expansion of the National Broadband Network and GovNet, and the launch of a National AI Task Force to guide ethical AI adoption.
These initiatives require reliable, high-capacity international connectivity to be commercially useful. A subsea infrastructure that concentrates 54 percent of the island’s traffic on a single ageing cable is not the foundation on which an AI services economy can be built.

What Happens Next

TAM-1 is being deployed in two phases, with the first phase connecting Florida with Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The second phase will add branches to connect Haiti, the Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad, and Jamaica.
The Letter of Intent remains non-binding, and converting it into a full build agreement will require regulatory approvals, final commercial terms between the government and TAFS, and decisions on cable landing station locations.
The initiative envisages a dedicated spur connecting the TAM-1 network to Jamaica with a purpose-built branching unit, delivering a fibre pair with up to 20 terabits per second of bandwidth, with the main subsea cable including redundancy via a primary link to Florida and a backup link to Panama.

The Prime Minister framed the investment as a pitch to international business, noting that when companies consider where to place BPO operations, call centres, or digital businesses, Jamaica’s goal is to have several subsea cables with great redundancies at competitive prices, making it the preferred destination.
Whether that vision is realised will depend on how swiftly the non-binding intent can be translated into laid cable, and whether the commercial terms ultimately produce the market competition and price reductions the government is promising its citizens and the international investors it hopes to attract.