Curaçao is approaching an important crossroads in telecommunications. The planned connection to the CELIA submarine cable and the possible arrival of Starlink could significantly strengthen the island’s digital resilience. But these developments also expose a much larger question that has received too little public attention: what exactly is Curaçao’s national strategy for telecommunications?
That question has become increasingly urgent following recent internet disruptions. They demonstrated once again that connectivity is no longer simply a convenience for households watching television or browsing social media. Telecommunications have become critical infrastructure.
Banks and payment systems depend on it. Government services depend on it. Hospitals, schools, hotels, airlines and practically every modern business depend on it. When telecommunications fail, a significant part of Curaçao’s economy and society can be affected.
Yet much of the public discussion still revolves around individual providers, outages and internet speeds.
The debate should be much broader.
CELIA is more than another cable
The proposed CELIA submarine cable offers Curaçao an important opportunity to improve international connectivity and redundancy.
The government has indicated plans to invest approximately Cg. 44.6 million in the connection. Significantly, it has also described the infrastructure as strategically important and considers it desirable for the Country of Curaçao to become the legal holder of the usage rights.
That last point deserves considerably more attention.
It recognizes something Curaçao should have understood long ago: telecommunications infrastructure is not merely a commercial product. Certain parts of it are of such importance to the functioning of the country that the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring sufficient national control.
CELIA could provide Curaçao, through Aruba, with another route into the international telecommunications network. In an island economy where international connectivity depends on a limited number of physical connections, redundancy matters.
If one route fails, another should be available.
That is not simply good telecommunications policy. It is national resilience.
Starlink adds another layer
Starlink could add an entirely different form of redundancy.
Unlike submarine fiber-optic cables, satellite connectivity does not depend on the same physical infrastructure connecting Curaçao to the outside world. That makes satellite internet potentially valuable during major disruptions.
It could also introduce additional competition into Curaçao’s telecommunications market.
But there is an important distinction between having access to another network and controlling critical infrastructure.
Starlink is foreign-owned infrastructure operated largely outside Curaçao. That does not make it undesirable. On the contrary, it could become an important addition to the island’s connectivity ecosystem.
But Curaçao should not confuse diversification of suppliers with digital sovereignty.
If tomorrow an increasing share of our communications depends on infrastructure owned and controlled outside our jurisdiction, we may have greater connectivity while simultaneously having less control.
That is the paradox policymakers must confront.
Where is the national strategy?
The question therefore should not be whether Curaçao wants CELIA or Starlink.
It can benefit from both.
The question is how these technologies fit into a broader national strategy.
Where does Curaçao want critical government data stored? What telecommunications infrastructure should remain under Curaçao jurisdiction or control? How many independent international routes should the island have? What happens when a submarine cable is damaged? What happens when a major provider suffers a prolonged outage? Which systems must continue operating during a disaster?
And who ultimately controls the infrastructure on which all of this depends?
Those questions cannot be answered separately by telecommunications providers according to their individual commercial interests.
They require government policy.
Who brought us here?
There is another uncomfortable question that deserves consideration: are some of the same institutions and decision-makers now being asked to design Curaçao’s digital future also responsible for the weaknesses in the telecommunications environment we have today?
That is not an accusation. It is a governance question.
Before investing tens of millions in new infrastructure, government and regulator should be willing to evaluate past telecommunications policy.
Which strategic decisions were made during the past 10 or 20 years? Which were postponed? How did Curaçao arrive at its present level of dependence? Were sufficient investments made in redundancy? Did regulation encourage enough competition? Was critical infrastructure adequately protected? And were previous telecommunications policies actually implemented?
Without such an evaluation, Curaçao risks solving today's problems without learning why they developed in the first place.
Data sovereignty matters
The next discussion should also include something rarely mentioned in everyday political debate: data sovereignty.
Data sovereignty does not mean that every server must physically stand in Curaçao or that Curaçao should reject foreign technology.
That would make little sense for a small, internationally connected economy.
It means knowing where critical data are located, which laws apply to them, who can access them, who controls the infrastructure carrying them and what alternatives Curaçao has when foreign infrastructure becomes unavailable.
A country can embrace international technology while still protecting strategic autonomy.
The two are not contradictory.
This is also about the economy
Digital resilience should furthermore be treated as part of Curaçao’s investment climate.
Imagine an international company considering Curaçao as a regional base. It will examine taxes, labor costs, political stability and permits. But an increasingly digital company will also ask whether its internet connection is reliable, whether there are multiple international routes, where its data can be securely stored and whether operations can continue when one network fails.
Reliable telecommunications can therefore become an economic competitive advantage.
Unreliable telecommunications can become precisely the opposite.
If Curaçao wants to attract technology companies, financial services, remote businesses, data-intensive operations and other high-value industries, world-class connectivity cannot simply be a slogan. It must be measurable and demonstrable.
Curaçao needs more than CELIA and Starlink
Curaçao therefore needs more than individual telecommunications projects.
It needs an integrated national telecom and data strategy bringing together submarine cables, satellite connectivity, local fiber networks, data centers, cybersecurity, competition, ownership, emergency communications, redundancy and data sovereignty.
Such a strategy should establish where Curaçao wants to be in 2036 and beyond.
Which infrastructure must we own? Which can safely be left entirely to private operators? Where is foreign dependence acceptable? Where should government retain strategic rights? How much redundancy is enough? And what level of service should residents and businesses be entitled to expect?
CELIA and Starlink can both become pieces of that puzzle.
But buying pieces without first deciding what the completed puzzle should look like is not a national strategy.
Curaçao is investing in its digital future. Now it needs to decide who will control that future, how resilient it should be and how much sovereignty the country is willing to surrender for convenience, investment or technological progress.
The central question is therefore no longer simply whether Curaçao can obtain better internet.
It is whether Curaçao itself has a clear vision of the digital country it wants to become.