 Welcome to JSA TV, the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals. I'm Jamie Scato-Cotaia of JSA, and here at ITW 2018 in fabulous Chicago is my good friend, Mr. Eric Contag, executive chairman of GlobeNet. Eric, thanks for joining us. Thank you, Jamie. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's such an honor, and I have to say there's a long history of JSA TV interviews. He was one of my very first clients and co-conspirators of JSA TV. He helped me launch this video platform for us back in 2008. I want to say not to age us here. It's such an honor to be here, Jamie. This is great. And the GlobeNet story is one, of course, near and dear to our hearts, because it's such a story of growth, and you guys are unstoppable today. Just announced another example of that commitment to our industry. We have GlobeNet laying a new state-of-the-art submarine cable connecting Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires. So tell us about this news. What can we learn from it? Jamie, we're very, very excited about the announcement that we did today. GlobeNet, once again, is extending our services to meet the demands of the market, the industry, and in partnership with customers. So it's a natural extension of the GlobeNet system. It's going to be a 2,500-kilometer submarine cable system connecting, starting with our cable landing station in Rio, expressed down to Buenos Aires. Actually, we land in Las Toninas, Argentina, and then we have a new backhaul service that will connect into our pops in Buenos Aires. And on that route, we're going to have a landing in Santos, which is basically the coast to Sao Paulo. Being able to address both local traffic in Brazil as well as international traffic between Argentina, Brazil, and onwards to the United States. So this is a great project. We're very excited. We're really looking forward to finally having it in the water. And again, furthering that commitment from day one of you connecting North and South America. Yes. As you know, GlobeNet from day one has been investing in our infrastructure. We really cherish partnerships. And we talk to our customers. We talk to our partners. We listen. We try to see what's happening in the market. And this is an industry where you really have to keep your infrastructure up to the highest operating condition. So in anticipation of market changes and demand, we have continuously done large-scale upgrades on our subsea cable system. We also extended the network into Colombia. We've replaced cable segments on the GlobeNet network. And more recently, we completed the construction of our first, let's say, purpose-built data center in the northern coast of Colombia in the city of Barranquilla right next to our cable landing station. The other things that we've been working on is not only the, let's say, renovation but expansion of our cable landing stations. And we're also very proud that soon the NICPR, which is the Internet Exchange Point for Brazil, will be co-located with inside of our Fort Laesa cable landing station. So we've been expanding. We've been repurposing to some extent, let's say, the infrastructure. We continue to invest in our assets. And this cannot happen without the close participation with our partners, with our vendors, and of course, in having the team that really cares for our network and our company as if it was theirs. So this announcement for us is absolutely exhilarating. We're so happy that we're bringing a new extension to the GlobeNet network, but tied to that as well the other things that we have continuously done. And as you know, GlobeNet is well-recognized by the industry in the market for our quality of services. We're very well-recognized for bending over backwards, let's say, for our customers. And this is yet another example of some of the things that we've been able to achieve at GlobeNet over the years that we will continue to do in the years to come. And that brings to point, of course, your commitment to this industry and to infrastructure being recognized even at the World Communications Award. Recently, I was Best Regional Wholesale Operator. So congratulations there. Well, thank you very much. I think all these awards that we've been able to collect throughout the years really speak very, very highly of our team and I'm very proud of every single member that we have in the GlobeNet family. And it's an honor to be able to recognize by the industry because it does demonstrate that they see in us that this is an operator that they can trust, right? This is a service provider that their entire business relies on. And as you know, more than 99% of the global internet is on subsea cables. And there are many of our anchor customers that we have in all the countries that we serve that exclusively are running on the GlobeNet network. So we're very, very proud of that as well. And every day you wake up and you have to think, what is it that I need to do to ensure that we keep the highest uptime, the highest resiliency and deliver the type of services that our customers need? Well, your history of delivering on that commitment speaks for itself. And the industry, such as the World Communications Awards, for example, recognizes that. And we couldn't thank you more for your commitment there. And one last question. The question that I've been known to ask Mr. Eric, when he sits in the hot seat here at JSA TV, and you can kind of link through previous JSA TVs and see his response every time. But of course, knowing how customer-driven you are, looking into your crystal ball, what can we expect of GlobeNet in the next coming six to 12 months ahead? Well, that's a tough question. I know. Sorry. So look, our Brazilian Argentina cable in itself is a very large commitment. And that's going to require a lot of work, a lot of collaboration. We have an anchor partner that we're doing the project with. So there's going to be a lot of interaction over the next, let's say, six months. And until such time as the cable is actually in the water. So there's quite a bit of work that we're doing there. But as I mentioned earlier, we continue to expand, let's say, in our day-to-day capabilities in the markets that we serve. Right? So the next big thing, of course, is tied to really activating the IXE in Fortaleza. We've done an awful lot of work as well to revamp our cable initiation in Rio, where now our new cable is going to land. We continue to expand services directionally. And I think you're going to see a lot more of those activities. And as you know, we've always tried to stay ahead of market demand. These things take time. Building infrastructure is not something that happens overnight. So you really need to work very closely, very diligently with your partners, with your customers to be able to anticipate that next growth. And I think one of the things that if you look at any data source, like cartel or geography or others in the industry, you're going to see that there is a pretty good, very positive growth rate on a yearly basis. So 40% KGAR into a region continues to be impressive. I think infrastructure needs to be ready. It needs to be there. The user demand continues to grow. Latin America is great because to some extent you're still somewhat underserved. So what you're doing is you're preparing that infrastructure for the next wave of things. Right? We pay very close attention to what happens in the international market. And I've always said that whatever happens in the U.S., whatever happens in Europe or in Asia, eventually is going to come to Latin America. We have a little bit of an advantage to it. We have a slight delay in the market adaption of these new technologies, but that gives us time as a company, let's say, to prepare for that. It's a great preview. We can adapt quickly. Absolutely. So what we have to do is we need to take, let's say, those technological advances and to some extent tropicalize them. Right? Let's say to be able to serve our markets in our region. So we will continue to do that. We're going to continue to do that very well and to deliver to our customers what we have promised them. So very excited about that. It's growth, but it's done intelligently. So thank you so much for your insight and for joining us again. Mr. Eric Kontag, of course. And thank you for joining us viewers here on JSA TV. Happy networking.