Curaçao’s Aquatel Joins Celia Subsea Cable Project
Curaçao’s Aquatel Joins Celia Subsea Cable Project
By Dan Swinhoe, Data Center Dynamics
June 9, 2025
Aquatel has joined the Celia subsea cable consortium and aims to bring the system to the island of Curaçao.
The company, in collaboration with Aruba telco SETAR, and the government of Curaçao, has signed an agreement for the installation and operation of the Celia submarine cable on the Dutch territory.
Announced late last year, the 3,700km Celia cable is estimated to have a capacity of 170Tbps across eight fiber pairs, featuring a minimum of 22Tbps per pair.
The cable will run from Boca Raton, Florida, through Aruba and now Curaçao, landing at locations in the Caribbean and Latin America, including Martinique, Antigua, and Puerto Rico. Celia is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2027.
The project will see around $27 million invested to bring the cable to the island.
Members of the Celia consortium are SETA as the landing partner in Aruba, Orange as the landing partner in Martinique, Telxius as the landing partner in Puerto Rico and Boca Raton, and APUA as the landing partner in Antigua.
Curaçao is an island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Dutch Caribbean region of the southern Caribbean Sea, around 65 km (40 mi) north of Venezuela.
The island is the landing point for a number of international cables, including the Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS), Americas-II, and ARCOS systems, all linking the US to mainland South America. Two of these, however, are more than 20 years old and close to the end of their lives.
Curaçao is also linked to other islands in the region via the Jerry Newton, ECLink, Amerigo Vespucci, and Alonso de Ojeda systems. Many of these systems are also more than 20 years old.
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