Panama City, Panama

Panama City, Panama: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Panama City is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama, situated on the Pacific coast at the entrance to the Panama Canal. As a landing point for submarine cables, it connects Panama to the broader Pacific corridor, with links reaching north toward Mexico and the United States and south toward Ecuador and Colombia. Two submarine cables currently land at Panama City, making it one of several established cable landing points within the country.

The two cables landing here serve different generations of connectivity. One is a legacy link to Ecuador dating from 1999, while the other is a forthcoming multi-country system scheduled for readiness in 2026. Together, they position Panama City within both the South American Pacific coastal corridor and a broader intercontinental route spanning North and South America.

Cables Landing at Panama City, Panama

Carnival Submarine Network-1 (CSN-1) is a 4,670-kilometre system with a planned ready-for-service date of 2026, currently in draft status. The cable connects Panama to Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and the United States, establishing a multi-country route along the Pacific coast of the Americas. This system extends Panama City's reach northward to Mexico and the United States while also reinforcing southward connectivity to Colombia and Ecuador.

PanAm South is a 1,340-kilometre cable that entered service in 1999, making it the earliest submarine cable to land in Panama. It connects Panama City directly to Ecuador, forming a shorter bilateral link along the South American Pacific coastline. PanAm South represents the foundational layer of Panama City's submarine cable infrastructure.

Regional Context

Within Panama, submarine cable infrastructure is distributed across seven landing points hosting a total of nine cables. Panama City, with two cables, shares its cable count with Balboa and Fort Amador, while Maria Chiquita leads the country with four cables. Colón, Cristóbal, and Ustupo each host a single cable. Panama City therefore sits in the middle tier of Panamanian landing points by cable count.

Network Role

Panama City functions as a two-cable landing point serving the Pacific corridor of the Americas. PanAm South anchors it to Ecuador as a point-to-point regional link, while CSN-1, upon completion in 2026, will expand its reach to four additional countries across North and South America. This combination of a mature bilateral cable and an emerging multi-country system gives Panama City a presence in both the established and developing layers of Pacific submarine infrastructure.

As a Pacific-facing landing point in the same country that hosts the Canal, Panama City's position in the regional submarine cable graph reflects its role as a node connecting the South American Pacific coast to North American endpoints, complementing the broader constellation of Panamanian landing points that together span both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.