Canouan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

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

Canouan is a small island in the Grenadines chain, situated approximately 40 kilometres south of the main island of Saint Vincent. Measuring just 5.6 by 2 kilometres, it is one of the smaller inhabited islands in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with a population of around 1,700 and a principal settlement at Charlestown. Despite its modest size, Canouan hosts a submarine cable landing point, connecting the island to regional undersea communications infrastructure.

One submarine cable lands at Canouan: the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program, commonly known as CARCIP. This cable establishes a regional link between Canouan and other points within the Eastern Caribbean, enabling inter-island connectivity across Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and extending to Grenada. Canouan thus sits within a short-haul regional corridor rather than an intercontinental route.

Cables Landing at Canouan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

The Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (CARCIP) is a regional submarine cable spanning 225 kilometres, with a ready-for-service date of 2019 (draft status). The cable connects landing points within Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and extends to Grenada, forming an inter-island link across part of the southern Eastern Caribbean. Canouan represents one of the landing points on this system within the Grenadines island chain.

Regional Context

Within Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, submarine cable infrastructure is distributed across seven landing points in total. Kingstown, the national capital, is the most connected of these, served by three cables, while Canouan shares the single-cable status held by several other island landing points in the country, including Bequia, Chateaubelair, Mustique, Owia, and Union Island. Canouan is therefore representative of the outer-island tier of landing points in the national submarine cable network.

Network Role

Canouan functions as a single-cable terminus on the CARCIP system, providing the island with a dedicated submarine cable connection to the broader regional network rather than relying solely on terrestrial or wireless links to larger islands. The CARCIP cable links Canouan to other parts of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as well as to Grenada, positioning the island within an inter-island connectivity corridor in the southern Grenadines.

As one of seven submarine cable landing points across Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Canouan illustrates the country's approach of extending undersea cable access to smaller outer islands alongside the primary hub at Kingstown. Its presence in the regional submarine cable graph reflects the broader effort to distribute cable-based connectivity across an archipelagic nation composed of numerous small and dispersed islands.