EllaLink Launches Caribbean Gateway Development

Publication Staff, EllaLink
September 29, 2026

EllaLink has formally advanced its Caribbean Gateway proposal into the development stage following an announcement at CTU ICT Week 2026 in Cayenne, French Guiana. The planned open-access, carrier-neutral submarine system would connect Cayenne with Martinique and Guadeloupe, while a separate western leg would reach Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire.

The eastern corridor is intended to extend service through branches or Martinique-based interconnection to Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, St Barthelemy, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and nearby islands. Customers would gain routes toward Europe on EllaLink's transatlantic network, toward Brazil through Fortaleza, and onward toward North America. The arrangement is designed to provide an alternative for markets that now depend on a single international corridor or multiple network hops.

EllaLink emphasized that construction has not yet begun. Its immediate commercial work is to turn existing letters of intent into binding agreements with landing partners, assemble the financing package and complete the funding structure needed to authorize construction. The company has set the end of 2029 as the system's target for entry into service, making partner commitments and financing the next confirmed milestones.

The operator proposes using the ownership structure already applied to its dedicated branches in other markets. EllaLink would engineer and construct each branch, transfer the branch asset to the local landing party, and remain responsible for operations and maintenance. The landing partner would receive a dedicated spectrum IRU and determine how capacity is allocated and sold locally, leaving local access policy with the party funding that branch.

For cable owners and governments, the announcement adds a defined development option as the Caribbean and Guianas prepare for aging infrastructure and rising demand. EllaLink estimates regional traffic growth at about 25 percent annually and expects a number of existing systems to retire by 2031. A new corridor could therefore support route diversity and longer-term capacity planning, but the project still depends on firm commitments and completed financing.

The proposal builds on infrastructure that is already operating or nearing service. EllaLink's Sines-Fortaleza trunk entered service in June 2021, supplies 100 Tbps across four direct fiber pairs and operates with round-trip latency below 60 milliseconds. The roughly 2,100-kilometer Lum@link extension to Cayenne has completed marine installation and is due in service by the end of 2026. Alcatel Submarine Networks supplied that branch for its owner, SPLANG. The project received a EUR 29.9 million CEF Digital grant plus regional and French development support, creating the Cayenne platform from which the Caribbean system would expand.

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