OneComm ‘future proofing’ capacity with subsea cable upgrade
An upgrade to a subsea cable used by One Communications should be finalised by the middle of next year helping to future-proof its internet capacity.
The move is part of a multimillion-dollar investment by the firm which recently became the island’s first telecoms provider to offer 5G.
It also comes as Google is seeking to run a cable from Portugal to the US, via Bermuda as part of its plans to create a subsea cable hub on the island.
Niall Sheehy, One Communications’ chief executive, said bandwidth usage on the island was growing at about 20 per cent a year.
“We already have our own subsea cable that terminates in the US which we are upgrading as it is reaching the end of its life.
“We're making an investment now to upgrade it, to make sure it's capable to meet our future needs,” said Mr Sheehy. “Our bandwidth usage every year grows by about 20 per cent year-on-year.
“When we look at our network, we don't look at next year, we look ten or 15 years out. So we had concerns around our ability to carry our traffic off island.”
He said that work on the cable should be completed by the middle of next year and that, along with technology such as 5G, the firm had invested about $20 million in the past two years.
“So the investment that we make in Bermuda is not insubstantial by any means. We're committed to Bermuda.”
The cost of doing business in Bermuda is the main driver of high internet prices, the chief executive of One Communications said.
The island has consistently ranked as among the most expensive jurisdictions for internet connections.
“The cost to do business is very high. Our labour costs are high. All of the inputs are among the highest in the world as well,” said Niall Sheehy.
“So obviously when your costs are high, what you need to charge actually goes up as well. We've also seen the inflation that's impacting all the businesses in Bermuda.
“The cost of equipment is going up, the cost of things like insurance is going up, too, so we are impacted.”
Mr Sheehy said that One Communications tried to focus on bringing value, adding: “What we do have is a whole range of products and a whole range of services.
“What we have seen is people in Bermuda want the very best devices. They want the best phones. Like we had the iPhone 15 just come out, you know, last month. We had people knocking down the door to get the very latest and best of phones. We're now doing PlayStations. People want them.
“There are options, if you are more price conscious, where you can pay less and a lot of people do that.”
He added: “So for us, it's about having that range that people can select from. But the biggest challenge for us, without a doubt, is our inputs are going up every single year significantly, both externally and internally.”
Google hopes to build a 50,000 sq ft cable landing station at St David’s as part of its long-term strategy of building an Atlantic communications hub.
If it goes ahead, the building will be scaled for roughly four systems, or cables, starting with its own, called Nuvem. Google says there is no definitive plan for anything beyond Nuvem, but says it is planning for the future.
“Obviously we are very aware of Google coming in and to be honest, we would welcome any, all new technology, all investments in Bermuda. I think it's great for Bermuda. We're quite happy to see the investment,” said Mr Sheehy.
Despite the investment in its cable upgrade, One Communications also works with other providers to provide redundancy in case there is an issue with its own cable.
“So having Google on island is an opportunity for us to use Google for redundancy, among others. There's other providers on the island,” added Mr Sheehy.
He said that as Nuvem was going to run from Portugal to the US, via Bermuda, there may be an opportunity to use that route.
“There's a lot of European businesses here who are our customers, and getting that improvement on the kind of latency might be of interest to them.”
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