Dig­i­cel, the fastest-grow­ing wire­less telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions op­er­a­tor in the Caribbean, has fur­ther ex­pand­ed its ca­ble and broad­band foot­print with the ac­qui­si­tion of a sub­ma­rine fi­bre net­work that gives it a reach of some 3,100km across the re­gion.

This week the com­pa­ny got re­quired ap­provals to pur­chase sub­ma­rine as­sets from Guade­loupe-based Loret Group and Caribbean Fi­bre Hold­ings, com­plet­ing an­oth­er ma­jor step in its evo­lu­tion from a pure mo­bile provider to a com­plete com­mu­ni­ca­tions provider. In re­cent months Dig­i­cel has al­so ac­quired sev­er­al ca­ble TV and broad­band as­sets across the re­gion.

A re­lease from Dig­i­cel yes­ter­day said the pur­chase pro­vides the com­pa­ny with a whol­ly owned sub­ma­rine fi­bre op­tic ca­ble net­work pro­vid­ing ca­pac­i­ty from Trinidad con­nect­ing 12 coun­tries to Puer­to Ri­co with on­wards con­nec­tiv­i­ty to the Unit­ed States. In to­tal, Dig­i­cel has se­cured ac­cess to a ro­bust net­work com­pris­ing 15 sub­ma­rine seg­ments.

Group CEO, Colm Delves, said: "In our da­ta hun­gry world, we are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing we de­liv­er in­no­v­a­tive prod­ucts and ser­vices to our val­ued cus­tomers. This lat­est ac­qui­si­tion grants us sig­nif­i­cant ad­di­tion­al sub­ma­rine fi­bre ca­pac­i­ty which in turn means we can help our cus­tomers achieve their per­son­al and busi­ness goals through ad­vanced so­lu­tions and mul­ti­me­dia ex­pe­ri­ences on mul­ti­ple de­vices."

This lat­est deal comes just weeks af­ter Dig­i­cal reached agree­ment with Tel­star Ca­ble Lim­it­ed in Ja­maica to ac­quire its ca­ble and fi­bre net­work. This fa­cil­i­tates the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions gi­ant's move in­to that is­land's sub­scriber TV mar­ket and ex­pands its broad­band In­ter­net busi­ness with the ob­jec­tive of even­tu­al­ly of­fer­ing fixed-line ser­vices.

Oth­er ac­qui­si­tions by Dig­i­cel in re­cent months in­clude WIV Ca­ble TV in the Turks and Caicos Is­lands in April along with its sis­ter com­pa­ny, TCT, which of­fers broad­band ser­vices; SAT Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in Do­mini­ca in Feb­ru­ary; and Caribbean Ca­ble Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Hold­ing Lim­it­ed last No­vem­ber. The lat­ter com­pa­ny serves An­guil­la, Nevis, and Montser­rat.

Delves has in­di­cat­ed that more in­vest­ments are pend­ing. "We are in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in ca­ble TV, con­tent and fi­bre across our mar­kets to en­sure that Dig­i­cel is po­si­tioned at the fore­front of a da­ta-in­ten­sive world," he said in a com­pa­ny re­lease."We look for­ward to ex­pand­ing our foot­print fur­ther in this space in the com­ing year through a com­bi­na­tion of ac­qui­si­tions and green­field builds."Launched in 2001, Dig­i­cel has op­er­a­tions in 22 mar­kets across the Caribbean.