Puerto Rico Issues Tender for New Subsea Cable Landing Station in Mayagüez

Puerto Rico is moving to strengthen its position as a Caribbean connectivity hub, with a government agency launching a tender for the design, development, and construction of a new submarine cable landing station (CLS) on the island's western coast. The project signals the territory's intent to diversify its subsea infrastructure beyond the heavily concentrated landing points around the capital, San Juan.

The Puerto Rico Infrastructure Financing Authority (AFI), a government entity dedicated to developing facilities and improving the island's infrastructure, has issued the tender for a Tier III-quality CLS in Mayagüez capable of hosting up to four submarine cables. The scope of work encompasses civil and structural infrastructure, electrical and mechanical installations, redundant power and cooling systems, security and monitoring equipment, underground conduits, and fiber optic interconnections. The AFI did not disclose desired timelines for development.

Puerto Rico, a self-governing Caribbean island and US territory located roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, is already the landing point for more than a dozen current and planned subsea cables connecting it to nearby islands, the mainland United States, and Latin America. However, most of those cables come ashore on the north side of the island around San Juan. Mayagüez, situated in the center of the western coast, currently hosts no cable landings, making the proposed facility a strategic addition to the island's digital infrastructure map.

The new tender follows a separate government solicitation last year for a new subsea cable system. That 600-kilometer system is planned to have landing points in San Juan, Ponce, and Mayagüez in Puerto Rico, as well as St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Bid documents for the CLS project are available from November 4-13, with proposals due December 7.

The development carries significant implications for Puerto Rico's telecommunications resilience and its appeal as a data transit point for the region. A Tier III-quality facility with redundant power and cooling, combined with the ability to host multiple cables, would provide the redundancy and capacity needed to attract hyperscale and enterprise investment. For an island economy that has historically depended on a concentrated set of northern landing sites, adding a west-coast CLS could improve network diversity, reduce single-point-of-failure risk, and position Mayagüez as a new gateway for subsea connectivity between the US mainland, the Caribbean, and Latin America.