MARIGOT: --- Tintamarre President Gilles Gumbs has issued a written response to SMN News’s November 5, 2026 article, “Nine Years After Irma, French Quarter Still Waiting as Funding Gaps and Infrastructure Delays Demand Answers.”
In his response, Gumbs says the first phase of Tintamarre’s underground duct network is complete and in service, while construction of the second phase awaits financing. He says the grant funding anticipated in 2024 was not secured and that the partners are preparing an alternative financing arrangement. According to Gumbs, the legal and financial work on that arrangement was still underway when the November 13 Territorial Council agenda was prepared.
Gumbs also addresses the shareholders’ roles and explains who is responsible for installing fiber, activating service, and correcting coverage declarations.
In response to “Nine Years after Irma, French Quarter still waiting...” (SMN News, 5 November 2026)
Tintamarre welcomes the attention given to French Quarter residents. Their expectations regarding digital infrastructure are legitimate; we share them, and completing the network is our priority. The article raises several fair questions. Several concern Tintamarre directly, and we would rather answer them than leave them open.
Our role. Tintamarre’s sole purpose is to build and operate the passive civil-engineering infrastructure, that is, the underground ducts that house the fiber-optic cables. Deploying the fiber itself, activating the lines, and selling services are the responsibility of the electronic-communications operators. Whether fibre can actually be ordered at a given address therefore depends both on the presence of our ducts and on the deployment the operators carry out within them. This distinction matters for understanding where each responsibility lies.
Where the project stands. The first phase of the network is complete and in service. The second phase remains to be built, and securing its financing is our current priority. Following the procurement consultation, construction costs came back materially higher than the initial business-plan assumption, in a context shaped by the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and by the general rise in construction costs. This is the main reason the project has not yet moved into its second phase.
The 2024 financing package. The complementary financing considered at the end of 2024 did not come together as planned: the components anticipated at that time, in particular the expected grant funding, were not secured. That is precisely why the partners are now finalizing an alternative financing structure. Funds received to date have been applied to the completed first phase and to preparatory work; second-phase construction is pending the new financing.
The financing is being prepared. The Collectivité and the other project partners are working on a financing solution. Putting it in place has required additional legal and financial work, which is why it was not ready in time to appear on the 13 November council agenda. We will submit it to the competent bodies once the structuring is complete, and we will make its terms public then. We will not disclose figures or mechanisms that are still under discussion: these decisions involve a public authority and must follow its deliberative process, and premature disclosure would serve neither the project nor the residents.
The shareholders. Tintamarre has a share capital of 600,000 euros, and its shareholding, a matter of public record, brings together public and private partners: the Collectivité de Saint-Martin and Banque des Territoires, both public, each hold 40 percent, and Dauphin Telecom Infrastructures, a private company, holds 20 percent. In addition, the operators that use the network, including Dauphin Telecom Infrastructures and Orange, co-invest in it through long-term access contracts.
Fibre coverage declarations. The “déployé / raccordable” status shown on ARCEP’s map is declared by the operators, based on their own deployment, not by Tintamarre. In the streets where the second-phase civil engineering has not yet been built, fibre cannot be deployed and is genuinely not yet available. Where a declaration does not match the situation on the ground, the operator that made it must correct it. For our part, we will readily confirm, for any location, whether the civil engineering is in place.
Procurement and schedule. The construction framework advertised in early 2026 reflects planned procurement capacity, as the article rightly notes, not funds already committed or spent. We will order works under it once financing is secured, and we will publish a realistic completion schedule then. Committing to dates before the funding is in place would not be credible.
Matters outside our scope. Several topics in the article fall outside Tintamarre’s purpose. Public lighting, video-protection and the presence of public services are the responsibility of the Collectivité and the State; mobile-telephony installations and the wireless project are the responsibility of the operators concerned.
Tintamarre remains committed to serving the French Quarter and the rest of the territory, and to being transparent about the progress of its works as decisions are formalized.
