VSNL's Chennai to Singapore undersea cable work begins

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) on Saturday began laying undersea cable to connect Chennai and Singapore, a project that will facilitate its biggest bandwidth offering to date.

This optic fibre cable will have an initial capacity of 320 Gbps and 5.12 Tbps when fully lit. The project, called Tata Indicom India-Singapore Cable System, is to be commercialised in the fourth quarter of 2004.

N Srinath, director, operations, VSNL, told media persons that going forward the bandwidth prices are going to fall and the margins lay in volumes.

This is a major step up for VSNL, which currently accesses only about 19-22 Gbps (60-70 STM-1s) from the five undersea cables landed in India - SAFE, SEA-ME-WE 2 and 3, FLAG and Bharti's i2i. VSNL has also tied up bandwidth from SEA-ME-WE 4, which is slated to land in the country in mid-2005.

While he was unwilling to divulge the investment made in the project, he claimed that it would be at a bargain, in comparison to the investment made by Bharti in its 8.4 terabits venture - i2i. But for VSNL this will be the single biggest asset creation to date.

VSNL has also tied up bandwidth between Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan with East Asia Cable and is currently in negotiation with parties for the Japan-US connectivity, Srinath added.

South East Asian companies invested heavily in creating optic fibre infrastructure prior to their market crash.

Now these capacities are going unused and bandwidths have become available at far cheaper costs, he pointed out. In the light of this investments in creating fresh infrastructure beyond Singapore has become redundant, he explained.

Bulk of the bandwidth will be taken by carriers, where the prices will be low and business come from volumes, Srinath informed. At the retail end VSNL's prime target are the corporates, followed by the ISPs.

It is also a fourth business option opening up in the entertainment segment with broadband content. The undersea cables will also boost the globalisation of VSNL's services.

VSNL expects its optic fibre network on land to touch 25,000 kms in the current year. The 3175 kms of laying undersea cable will take three months time, Rob Munier, managing director, global systems sales, Tyco Telecommunications, said.

The US company laying the cables on a turnkey basis will deploy three ships for the process. CS Tyco Durable started off the Chennai shores on Saturday.