Improved internet quality ahead: New subsea cable routes to widen India’s data highway
Digital connectivity in India is set to get a major boost, with three large undersea cable projects — 2Africa Pearls, IndiaAsia-Express (IAX) and India-Europe-Express (IEX) — slated to go onstream between October and next March, expanding existing capacity by more than four times, said people familiar with the matter.
2Africa, among the longest subsea cable systems in the world, spanning over 45,000 km, has investments from Bharti Airtel and Meta, among others. It will have a capacity of 180 terabits per second (tbps), connecting 33 countries, including Sunil Mittal-led Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai. IAX and IEX involve contributions from Reliance Jio, among others.
Boost for Data Centre Operators:
IAX and IEX will be landing at Mumbai and Chennai, respectively, reinforcing India’s weight in the global telecom market.
IEX will have a capacity of over 200 tbps, covering 9,775 km from Mumbai to the Persian Gulf and further to Europe. IAX will also have a capacity of more than 200 tbps, extending more than 16,000 kms, starting from Mumbai, and connecting Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Experts said the three projects combined will significantly enhance capacity, besides improving the quality of internet services for 5G video streaming, Internet of Things, AI and cloud computing, helping draw large scale investments from data centre operators.
India had 17 international subsea cables landing in 14 distinct stations in five cities, with a cumulative lit capacity of 138.55 tbps and activated capacity
