Manzanillo, Mexico

Manzanillo, Mexico: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Manzanillo is a Pacific coast city in the Mexican state of Colima, known for hosting one of Mexico's most active commercial ports. As a submarine cable landing point, Manzanillo connects to the national undersea cable network through one system: the Lazaro Cardenas-Manzanillo Santiago Submarine Cable System (LCMSSCS). This cable links Manzanillo to other points along Mexico's Pacific coastline, forming a domestic corridor rather than an international or intercontinental route.

With a single cable landing, Manzanillo occupies a focused but defined position within Mexico's broader submarine cable geography. The country hosts 12 submarine cables across 14 landing points, and Manzanillo's single-cable status places it among the lower tier of Mexican landing points by cable count, ranking in the top 86% of the country's 14 landing points. The LCMSSCS, ready for service in 2013, represents a domestic connectivity asset serving the Pacific coast region of Mexico.

Cables Landing at Manzanillo

The Lazaro Cardenas-Manzanillo Santiago Submarine Cable System (LCMSSCS) is the sole submarine cable landing at Manzanillo. Spanning 322 kilometres and entering service in 2013, this cable connects locations entirely within Mexico. Its name references two of its key termination points — Ciudad Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo — along with Santiago, tracing a route along Mexico's Pacific coast. As a domestic system, it does not provide direct links to foreign countries but instead serves to interconnect Mexican coastal communities and infrastructure along this stretch of the Pacific shoreline.

Regional Context

Within Mexico's landing point network, Manzanillo sits alongside several other Pacific and Caribbean coastal nodes. Cancún leads the country with six cables, while Mazatlán serves as a two-cable hub. Manzanillo shares its single-cable status with Ciudad Lázaro Cárdenas, Isla de Cozumel, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, and La Paz — all of which also host one submarine cable each. This places Manzanillo in a grouping of smaller, more specialised landing points that complement the higher-capacity hubs elsewhere in the country.

Network Role

Manzanillo functions as a single-cable terminus within Mexico's domestic Pacific submarine cable network. The LCMSSCS connects it to other Mexican coastal points, supporting intra-national data and communications routing along the Pacific seaboard. Rather than serving as a gateway to international cable systems, Manzanillo's submarine cable infrastructure is oriented toward regional domestic connectivity.

In the wider Mexican submarine cable graph, Manzanillo's role is that of a specialised domestic node. Its presence in the network ensures that the Pacific coast of Colima state has a direct submarine cable link to other Mexican landing points, complementing the broader set of international and domestic cables distributed across Mexico's 14 landing points.