India and China get first terrestrial fibre link - across the Himalayas

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 19:05

IT Industry - Strategy

India's Reliance Communications and China Telecom have opened the first direct terrestrial cable link between the two countries, across the Himalayas from West Bengal in far North Western India, through India's border's state of Sikkim into neighbouring Tibet on the Chinese side.

The 239km of cable on the Indian side runs from Siliguri in West Bengal via Gorobathan, Rishi and Padamchin to the border crossing at Nathu La, altitude 4310metres, and 230kms from the Tibetan capital Lhasa.

According to Reliance, it will provide direct, enterprise-class connectivity between all major Indian and Chinese locations as well as expanding high-bandwidth coverage to more rural regions and cities in both countries. "Neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan and Bangladesh will also benefit in the longer term, through increased bandwidth availability and global termination options," Reliance says.
 
Reliance Globalcom, the global arm of Reliance Communications will be responsible for all services over the link and for relationships with interconnecting carriers. It says the new link will enable it to offer the additional protection of two separate cable routes between India and China with considerable less risk from natural disasters. "Both international businesses and consumers in the region will benefit from improved internet connectivity, lower latency and improved voice clarity calls."

Owen Best, president Reliance Globalcom Asia, told iTWire "This is a significant piece of diversity for us. It gives us the option of a low latency route and the ability to offer diversity to our clients that combines terrestrial with sub-sea links." Best said the cable had four fibre pairs and an initial capacity of 20Gbps but is upgradeable to several terabits per second.

According to Reliance Globalcom, "Previously, the only available option for high-bandwidth connectivity between the two countries was via undersea cable routes through Hong-Kong or Singapore. The disruption to major international services in the region due to the recent typhoons and earthquakes has clearly exposed an associated risk with complete dependence on these cables. This new terrestrial link enables Reliance Globalcom to provide business critical service provision to its customers by offering dual cable route diversity between India and China for the first time."
 
"This cable connection is a landmark which represents many years of planning and hard work," said Han YiHu, managing director of China Telecom. "It will greatly assist our customers to become global industry leaders, while improving opportunities for international business development in both India and China."
 
Punit Garg, president, Reliance Communications, said: "This new cable will help our customers across Asia and beyond to effectively compete on a global scale by providing increased network availability and secure connectivity from the world's key business centres to these high growth markets."

According to Best, construction of the cable took about 15 months and faced considerable challenges. "In the winter months there are certain times when you can't work...and there is a militarised area along the border where permits are required."

Nathu La is one of the three trading border posts between China and India; the other two being Shipkila in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh in Uttarakhand. Nathu La was closed by India after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, but re-opened in 2006 following numerous bilateral trade agreements. 

Current agreements between the two nations limit trade across the pass to the export of 29 types of goods from India and import of 15 from the Chinese side.