New Delhi, Sept 05: Reliance Communications Ltd today launched commercial operations of its 2.56 tb undersea cable connecting the Middle East region with India in an effort to provide bandwidth to end-users like IT, BPO and international voice telephony companies.
The whopping capacity of 2.56 terabit FALCON submarine cable system connects 11 countries and four continents as its 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.
Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, who inaugurated the cable system, 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 would soon be experienced by Indian enterprises and consumers.”
Reliance is pitted against Bharti and VSNL in the bandwidth space.
“The availability of high quality international connectivity would catalyse the broadband revolution and at the same time boost the vistas of the burgeoning ITES and BPO enterprises” said Maran.
He also asked the ambassadors of the Middle East countries connected through the FALCON cable, present on the occasion, to work together to bring down the landing costs.
Landing costs of submarine cables passing through these countries in Middle East are considered to be high. FALCON has 14 landing stations.
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 dollars (nearly Rs 2,309 crore) but the company has been able to complete the project with 400 million dollars (nearly Rs 1,847 crore) with 20 per cent cost saving.
Communications solutions provider Alcatel partnered with Reliance for the project to supply equipment.
“We will create value for all the stakeholders,” Ambani said.
The demand for bandwidth is also growing within India where software services sector and the banking industry provide huge potential. International voice telephony (ISD) services also need bandwidth for operationlisation of network.
FALCON will be a part of Reliance Communications’ Flag Telecom Global Network, which already has cables running through 35 countries spanning four continents.
With today’s launch of FALCON cable, Flag Telecom Global Network became the world’s largest undersea cable system covering 65 000 route kms.
“Our pre-sales initiatives have resulted in an overwhelming response are an encouraging indicator of the future business prospects,” Flag Telecom CEO Punit Garg said through a 11-country video conference from Egypt.
Zee News
September 5th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Well, atleast things are improving in the back-end arena.
September 6th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
it’s not batelco’s fault, the fiber cable was damaged by a ship :p
rings a bill?
September 7th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
That ship is a menace, damaging our cables so often