Puerto Viejo, Venezuela

Puerto Viejo, Venezuela: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Puerto Viejo is a submarine cable landing point situated on the coast of Venezuela, a country that hosts submarine cable infrastructure across multiple locations along its shoreline. One submarine cable lands at Puerto Viejo, connecting Venezuela to a broader South American and Pacific corridor. That cable, the South American Crossing (SAC), represents one of the most expansive submarine cable systems in the Western Hemisphere by length.

The South American Crossing links Venezuela with a set of nations that spans both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, as well as Central America. This makes Puerto Viejo a terminus through which Venezuela participates in intercontinental and inter-regional connectivity running the length of South America and into Panama.

Cables Landing at Puerto Viejo, Venezuela

The South American Crossing (SAC) is the sole submarine cable landing at Puerto Viejo. Measuring 20,000 kilometres in total length and ready for service in 2000, the SAC connects Venezuela with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Panama, and Peru. The cable's reach across multiple South American nations, combined with its extension into Panama, establishes a ring-like architecture that traces both the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines of the continent. Puerto Viejo serves as the Venezuelan landing point for this system.

Regional Context

Within Venezuela, submarine cable infrastructure is distributed across fifteen landing points, with Puerto Viejo hosting one cable alongside peers such as Punto Fijo, which serves two cables, and several other single-cable locations including Cabimas, Camuri, Carúpano, Chichiriviche, and Coro. Puerto Viejo's cable count places it among the majority of Venezuelan landing points, most of which also host a single system. Punto Fijo stands as the most connected landing point in the country by cable count.

Network Role

Puerto Viejo functions as a single-cable terminus on the South American Crossing system. Through the SAC, the landing point connects Venezuela directly to six other countries, enabling routing across both coasts of South America and into the Central American isthmus via Panama. The cable's 20,000-kilometre span means that Puerto Viejo, despite hosting only one system, is a point of entry onto one of the longest submarine cable routes in the region.

In the broader Venezuelan submarine cable graph, Puerto Viejo contributes one of fifteen access points through which the country connects to international cable infrastructure. Its position on a long-haul, multi-country cable distinguishes it from landing points that serve shorter regional links, reinforcing the diversity of cable types and corridors present across Venezuela's coastline.