The head of a local internet service provider believes that a proposed cable and landing facility may lead to cheaper connectivity on the island.

Troy Symonds, the managing director of LiveNet Communications, said this after Google announced in September plans to install the Nuvem cable and provided additional information about the massive project during last week’s tech summit at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.

According to David Robles, Google’s global construction lead, the cable will connect South Carolina to Portugal through Bermuda. This will add significant capacity to what is installed ãt present and more options for the providers on the island in terms of purchasing wholesale bandwidth.

Mr Symonds said: “We used to have one line going through the Challenger cable”

The Challenger cable runs from Bermuda to Rhode Island.

“If that one failed, we had to route it through a second system and then a third one.

He added that Nuvem could lead to lower costs.

The cable, which is scheduled to be completed by 2026, will be the first step in the creation of a mesh network in the Atlantic with Bermuda as its hub.

Mr Robles said: “For network engineers, the mesh is kind of the Holy Grail of networking, where every point is connected to every other point through multiple paths, and this is what we are trying to achieve in the Atlantic.”

Mr Symonds added: “That, I think, is the real upside when I think of not challenging local service providers in the traditional way.”

Google plans to sell connectivity to local providers once the cable is completed.

Mr Symonds said that LiveNet will “definitely consider” buying this connectivity and hearing what Google has to offer.

The Royal Gazette reached out to Digicel and One Communications for comment about the proposal, but did not receive a response by press time.