/vnd/media/agency_attachments/bGjnvN2ncYDdhj74yP9p.png)
Global Cloud Xchange, a subsidiary of telecom operator Reliance Communications, has said it would invest $200 mn for laying 5,000 km long undersea cable network between Mumbai and Singapore.
The company claims that the interconnection exchange (ICX) cable will make it the largest cable providers connecting Europe with Asia.
Bill Barney, chief executive officer of Global Cloud Exchange, said: “This interconnection exchange (ICX) cable will enable us to become the largest cable providers connecting Europe with Asia. It will also provide a 20% growth in assets and help us tap emerging markets, like Sri Lanka.”
He also informed that the company has tied up with other three equity partners for the project and their names will be disclosed by the third quarter of 2014.
"The equity partners will take one fibre each. There are four fibres. There will be three other partners, two of which would be technology firms and one telecom firm," he added.
This ICX cable infrastructure is part of the company’s strategy to provide a direct subsea route to bridge the gap in the emerging markets corridor, and to provide a direct Mumbai-Singapore route in order to subside current outage prone terrestrial routes between Mumbai and Chennai.
“With Singapore as a regional hub and gateway for multinational companies doing business across India and emerging markets, the ICX cable will complement our GCX global network infrastructure for direct connectivity to major
business centers in Asia, Middle East, North America and Europe,” Barney said.
The network between Mumbai and Singapore would have a branch landing Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai. The submarine cable network would take at least 18-19 months to start operations and would start delivering revenues only after 16 months.
“The new ICX fiber system, which runs approximately 5,060 kilometers between Mumbai and Singapore, will also have a branch landing in Trivandrum and/or Chennai. This will support creation of a next generation IP and Cloud
environment held together with a single AS number and connecting into Tier III+ data center facilities on the ground,” said Wilfred Kwan, chief Operating officer, Global Cloud Xchange.
The ICX cable will be a four fiber pair system with initial design capacity per fiber pair at 80 x 100G using next generation Coherent Submarine Fiber. This new segment will deliver termination into the Middle East, Europe and to the US East Coast through interconnection with GCX’s Falcon, Hawk and FA-1 systems.
Global Cloud Exchange was formerly known as Reliance Globecom and Flag Telecom. GCX owns the world’s largest private undersea cable system spanning more than 67,000 route kms which, seamlessly integrated with Reliance
Communications’ 200,000 route kms of domestic optic fiber backbone, provides a robust Global Service Delivery Platform.
India’s international bandwidth demand requirements will rise over 10-fold between 2013 and 2020, according to TeleGeography.