Flow set to bring 100x faster fibre network to all homes

By Christopher Tobutt

Flow has made a commitment to make the latest in fiber technology available to every home in Cayman within a 1-year timeframe. The big new announcement represents a major stepping-up of the fiber network installation program, which will facilitate 100x faster download and operation speeds. As each district is outfitted with fiber to the home, Flow will migrate those customers from the existing copper network on to the new fiber networks. The team is currently building out the fiber network in West Bay and Spotts and is anxious to expand into other districts, bringing speeds of 1000Mbp to residential and business customers, a Flow spokesperson said.

Flow is keen to partner with CUC who own some of the dependent infrastructure for the new project, and is seeking their cooperation to be able to continue with the project.

Flow, under its former title, Cable & Wireless, installed the first fiber connections to businesses back in 1992, and has steadily been expanding and upgrading to faster speeds and greater capacity. But the new initiative means that many new options will be available for ordinary homes, schools as well as small and medium-scale businesses, commented said at the recent announcement.

“This is our commitment to deliver fiber to every home, every school, every business and every government facility throughout Grand Cayman and to the Sister Islands. We are making a real investment to make sure no one is left behind,” Mr. Mayo-Smith said, “Where there are several devices in the home, whether people are streaming from a laptop or doing schoolwork, everyone can be connected ultra-fast all the time. That includes things like video calling, or being able to download that movie in a couple of minutes, when you are sitting at home and relaxing. It will also facilitate the use of some of the more complex solutions we offer, like cloud services, disaster recovery.”

Flow’s big new investment means that a lot of new jobs are being created, and since the beginning of the year ten Caymanians have been given positions in customer service and also on the technology side. There are going to be places for about 15 more too, Mr. Mayo-Smith said.

“This type of project also helps us with our corporate responsibility. We connect the majority of primary and secondary schools through our sponsorship, and we partnered with the regulator to bring WiFi to our community centers for free.”

Mr. Tathum said: “On heels of this we have just launched our small and medium businesses plan, where we have broadband and mobile combined. This is all to take us to the next level. One of the things we learned from the lockdown is that people love technology. They may not have been using it before, but they are using it a lot more now. We are going to streamline our business to accommodate these customers.”

“We are really excited by our plans to expand our fiber-to-the home footprint and the amazing benefits it will bring to our customers across the Cayman Islands.”