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Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), the submarine cable unit of Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications (RCom), has commenced work on a submarine cable linking Mumbai to Singapore. The cable system will incur a total investment of $200 million (about ₹1,200 crore).
GCX (formerly Reliance Globalcom) will invest about $40-45 million in the sub-sea cable system – India Cloud Xchange (ICX) – and the remaining will be pooled in by its partners. The 5,060-km-long cable network will be ready for service by the second quarter of 2016.
Direct route “This is a private cable system. This is essentially to replace sub-sea network between Mumbai and Singapore sector by putting up a massive cable. The cable system is also part of our strategy to provide a direct route to emerging markets corridor,” said GCX Chief Executive Officer William Barney.
ICX cable will have its main landing station in Mumbai, with provisions for landing stations in Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai. On lighting up, the ICX cable will provide direct connectivity to major business centres in Asia, West Asia, North America and Europe, said GCX Chief Operating Officer Wilfred Kwan.
It will also connect West Asia, Europe and US East Coast through interconnection with GCX’s Falcon, Hawk and FA-1 systems.
Supply contracts soon ICX will have four pair of cables running parallel to each other, while redundancy would be supported on its other cables such as Flag and Falcon. Pre-sale of bandwidth would start within the next 16 months.
Submarine cable vendors and other partners are being finalised, with GCX expected to announce supply contracts by third quarter of 2014. At present, RCom has 10 terabites of bandwidth landing in India, which would rise to 100 TB within 3-4 years of lighting up the new cable. “India’s international bandwidth demand requirements will increase over 10-fold between 2013 and 2020,” according to TeleGeography Research Director Alan Mauldin.
RCom shares ended down 1.32 per cent at ₹149.10 apiece on a weak BSE, which ended down 0.18 per cent on Thursday.
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