Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Bequia is the second-largest island in the Grenadines and lies approximately 15 kilometres south of Kingstown, the capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. As an island community, its connection to submarine cable infrastructure directly shapes how residents and institutions access external communications networks. One submarine cable lands at Bequia, linking the island into a regional inter-island corridor that spans parts of the southern Caribbean.

The cable serving Bequia is the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP), a system that connects multiple island territories within the region. Through this connection, Bequia participates in a network designed to improve inter-island connectivity across Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and its neighbouring states.

Cables Landing at Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

The Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP) is a submarine cable system spanning 225 kilometres, with a Ready for Service (RFS) date of 2019. The cable connects landing points across Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, forming a regional inter-island link within the southern Caribbean. Bequia represents one of the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines termination points on this system.

Regional Context

Within Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, submarine cable infrastructure is distributed across seven landing points, with Kingstown serving as the most connected, hosting three cables. Bequia sits alongside several single-cable landing points in the country, including Canouan, Chateaubelair, Mustique, Owia, and Union Island, each of which also hosts one submarine cable. This places Bequia on an equal footing with the majority of cable-connected island locations in the country outside the capital.

Network Role

Bequia functions as a single-cable terminus within the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines submarine cable network. Its sole connection, the CARCIP system, ties the island into a regional route that extends to Grenada and other landing points within Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, enabling inter-island data exchange across this part of the Caribbean. The cable's relatively short length of 225 kilometres reflects the compact geographic scale of the corridor it serves.

As one of six outer-island landing points in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — each hosting a single cable — Bequia illustrates the broader pattern of distributed submarine cable deployment across the Grenadines archipelago. Its presence in the regional submarine cable graph ensures that the island is not solely reliant on overland or microwave connections to the national capital, but instead holds a direct fibre link into a shared regional system.