In sync with its plans to build a global submarine cable system connecting India, Tata group, which controls VSNL, is looking at roping in partners to lay the high speed multi-terabit cables and is in talks with almost all the carriers in these regions.  

Currently, VSNL has limited bandwidth (only 40 gigabits) on the busy India-Europe leg in the SEA-ME-WE consortium cable, where it is one of 14 partners. It also buys bandwidth on the Singapore- Hong Kong-Japan leg before it is connected to the US west coast.
 
“The new cables will enhance VSNL’s global network in two of the fastest growing regions of the world. We will be investing around $250 million in the Asian cable, and $350 million in the European one. These are expected to be ‘lit’ by 2007-end and by the first-or second-quarter of 2008, respectively,” VSNL executive director N Srinath told reporters in Miumbai.

Once these are completed, VSNL will have a 200,000-km undersea cable system crisscrossing the globe.
 
The new cables will be incorporated into the company’s existing network which has over 20 terabits of capacity that includes the SEA-ME-WE series, the Tyco system (which it had acquired), Teleglobe, and the Tata-Indicom (Chennai-Singapore) system.

VSNL officials pointed out that they anticipated a huge demand of over 10 terabits from India to the US via Europe in the next four to five years, from the growing BPO and ITES industry. The India-Europe cable will also provide connectivity to the Persian Gulf and Africa.

Today, VSNL is buying leased capatcity between Singapore and Japan. Once this loop was completed, it would connect the west coast of the US via Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Tyco owns the submarine cable that connects Japan with the US.

The company is already in the process of finalizing design details, selecting suppliers and identifying additional partners for the project and will soon shortlist vendors for laying these cables.

The network operating centers for the two systems will be in Mumbai. The Asian cable will have a landing station in Chennai, and the European one in Mumbai.
 
VSNL’s main competitor providing international bandwidth, Reliance Communications, (through Flag Telecom), announced its intention to lay a cable, known as Falcon, between India and Egypt to enhance its capacity on the European route.
 
However, its attempts to enhance capacity on Flag Telecom, which it bought over, are not taking off due to its dispute with VSNL. {moscomment}