The Hindu : Business : ADAG launches 12,000 km undersea cable system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 06, 2006

Business

Business

ADAG launches 12,000 km undersea cable system

Special Correspondent

Boost to India's IT, BPO and ILD phone sectors

— Photo: R. V. Moorthy

FASTER CONNECTIVITY: Union Communications and IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, making the first call from New Delhi after inaugurating `Falcon', a new fibre-optic submarine cable system providing high speed connectivity between West Asia and India on Tuesday as the Chairman of ADAG, Anil Ambani, makes a point.

NEW DELHI: Reliance Communications Ltd, belonging to the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, on Tuesday launched commercial operations of its 2.56 terabit undersea cable, connecting the West Asia region with India in an effort to provide bandwidth to end-users like IT, BPO and international voice telephony companies.

Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran formally inaugurated the commercial operations of the Falcon Cable System, laid by Flag Telecom, a subsidiary of Reliance Communications Ltd., by calling his Egyptian counterpart Tarek Kamel. The submarine cable system connects 11 countries and four continents as it stretches 11,859 km from Mumbai to Egypt. It covers Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, where Falcon is expected to bring down the bandwidth costs. Falcon has 14 landing stations.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Maran said: "Falcon heralds a new era in the telecom landscape of the country by providing a cost-effective source of international bandwidth. The initiatives of Reliance and others will provide healthy competition and robust growth. The carriers will further bring down their tariff in line with the prevailing market prices. The benefits will soon be experienced by Indian enterprises and consumers.''

He said the availability of high quality international connectivity would catalyse the broadband revolution and at the same time boost the vistas of burgeoning ITES and BPO enterprises.

The Minister asked the ambassadors of the countries present on the occasion to work together to bring down the landing costs of submarine cables passing through their countries.

Reliance-ADA Group Chairman Anil Ambani said: "We are glad that the Falcon project has been completed in a record time and is being launched four months ahead of schedule with significant cost savings. The cable will provide seamless connectivity on one single network in the fastest-growing international bandwidth demand areas of India, China and the Middle East.''

He said the entire cost of laying the cable was estimated at $500 million (nearly Rs. 2,309 crore) but the company had been able to bring down the cost to $400 million (nearly Rs. 1,847 crore).

Alcatel partnered with Reliance for the project to supply equipment. "We will create value for all the stakeholders,'' Mr. Ambani said.

The demand for bandwidth is also growing within India where software services and the banking industry provide huge potential. International voice telephony (ISD) services also need bandwidth for operationlisation of network.

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