Heavy Demand Seen for Undersea Cable Connectivity in Latin America

BOSTON, Sept. 11 -- Carrier demand for undersea cable capacity in Latin America will reach more than 80 Gb/s by the end of next year and continue to increase by a compounded annual rate of about 68 percent, according to a report done by the Yankee Group -- a provider of research and consulting services based in Boston, Mass. This would result in carrier demand of about 1.4 Tb/s by 2006 -- an attractive incentive for the three companies competing for the opportunity to provide bandwidth capacity for South America's first private broadband undersea cable system, which is expected to be operational by the last quarter of this year.
Global Crossing Ltd., Telefonica Inc. and 360networks Inc. are currently developing their respective networks in an attempt to be first-to-market with pan-regional, wholesale bandwidth capacity for the burgeoning Latin American market. MCI WorldCom and Telecom Italia are also pondering the possibility of another consortium-backed cable to South America.
The Latin American wholesale market could be worth more than $3 billion by the end of 2001 and grow to about $21 billion by 2006 as the demand for capacity grows, said the Yankee Group report.