Government Close To Awarding Contract for Undersea Fiber Optic Cable

Premiere Donaldson Romeo says the government is close to a decision to award a contract to lay the fibre optic cable.

He announces that four bids were received from contractors

Mr. Romeo says the undersea fiber optic cable will provide highly reliable, resilient access to the internet, over a thousand times the capacity Montserrat now has.

The cable will be Montserrat's first international fiber optic connection since the mid-1990s, when the eruption of the Soufrière Hills Volcano led to the decommissioning of the island’s only undersea cable connection.

The Project ensures that Montserrat will no longer be disconnected from the global fibre network and that Montserratian consumers, businesses, and government users will benefit from affordable, reliable, high-quality telecommunications and Internet services.

The tremendous transmission capacity of fiber optic networks, currently in the terabits per second, guarantees that Montserrat's bandwidth requirements will be comfortably accommodated for at least the next 20 years.

It will also allow Montserratians to take advantage of key digital initiatives such as telemedicine, distance education, and research networks.