CELIA Caribbean European Territories Cable: 22-EU-DIG-CELIA CETC

Programme(s): Connecting Europe Facility (CEF)

Topic(s): CEF-DIG-2022-GATEWAYS-WORKS

Type of action: CEF Infrastructure Projects

Project ID: 101133744

Objective: The CELIA Caribbean European Territories Cable project (CELIA CETC) is carried by two European Partners ORANGE as French operator and SETAR as a Dutch operator. It aims to build a state-of-the-art submarine cable to improve the connectivity conditions of two French and Dutch Caribbean islands, Martinique and Aruba respectively. The new cable will cover approximately 1888 kilometers with a 40 Tbps design capacity over 2 fiber pairs. The cities where the landing stations will be installed as part of the CELIA CETC project are Le Lamentin (Martinique, France) and Baby Beach (Aruba, The Netherlands). The submarine cable system will also land in Saint Thomas (US-VI), San Juan (Porto Rico, USA), Sunny Isles Beach (USA), Harbor Point Antigua & Barbuda, Santo Domingo Dominican Republic and Carthagena Colombia, such landing being funded only by users of these cable landing stations without contribution from CEF. In line with the priorities of the EU, and particularly those related to digital connectivity, the analysis of the connectivity environment of the Caribbean zone has highlighted major challenges: firstly, the expected end of service of the Americas-II cable in 2025; secondly, the connectivity reinforcement of European Outermost Regions (OR) and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) The CELIA CETC project is part of a submarine cable consortium named CELIA. The project CELIA CETC is implemented by Orange as Coordinator and Setar as Beneficiary, which will ensure the continuity of European sovereignty over the ownership and operation of the future cable. This new infrastructure will be able to sustain up to at least year 2050 the traffic growth for all citizen of Aruba and French Caribbean territories with almost unlimited bandwidth, low latency and high resilience. This new infrastructure will enhance their connectivity to the rest of the world and they will be equally connected compared to continental users from a digital point of view.