GigNet, a digital infrastructure company with an extensive regional fiber-optic broadband network from Costa Mujeres, North of Cancun, through the Hotel Zone of Tulum, announced it has entered into a Letter of Intent to acquire the assets, operations, and development to date for a subsea cable system between Florida and Cancun, Mexico from FB Submarine LLC.
Over the past three years, a significant amount of research, planning, and studies have been completed for what will be the first competitive subsea cable between the USA and Mexico in approximately 20 years. Over that period, demand for secure broadband capacity for streaming, cloud services, data centers, social media, and other Internet applications and services have grown exponentially.
Development to date for the “GigNet-1” subsea cable has included completion of the Desktop Study, regulatory and permitting feasibility studies for each of Florida and Mexico, market demand and analysis studies, and the selection and contracting of key suppliers for the system design, equipment, routing and installation. A detailed Marine Route Survey (MRS) has commenced and is expected to be completed within the next 90 days.
After thorough service provider evaluations, negotiations and contracting, Xtera was selected to serve as the primary EPC contractor for the subsea cable.
In Mexico, GigNet’s wholly owned operating subsidiary GigNet S.A. de C.V. will provide access to the beach in Cancun and colocation in GigNet’s Cancun cable landing station. GigNet in Mexico operates an advanced fiber-optic network in the Riviera Maya region serving the hospitality, enterprise and planned development segments. GigNet will serve as a major tenant on the subsea cable system and will distribute IP transit and private line connectivity with GigNet-1 throughout the region.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed and closing is subject to final due diligence, finalization of terms and conditions, completion of independent valuation analysis, and board approval, expected within the next 30 days.
