Reliance plans UAE cable link

The Reliance group is working on a project to lay an under-sea cable link between India and West Asia. Christened the 'Falcon project', the project is expected to link Jamnagar, Gujarat (where the company's petrochemical and refinery project is located) to Fujiarah port in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

While the investment in and the capacity of the project are not known as of now, industry experts point out it will not cost more than $100 million for an 8 terabit capacity cable network. A Reliance Infocomm spokesperson declined to comment.

Reliance, which wants to become a major player in the international long distance (ILD) telecom business, is acquiring Flag Telecom, the 50,000 km strong under-sea cable network across the world, for $207 million.

Flag already has a cable netting which runs from Mumbai to west Asia and south-east Asia. But it has to depend on VSNL as the exclusive landing station for all its cable coming to India till the life of the wire (which is around 7 years).

Reliance has stated that it expects the data market to boom and large volumes of bandwidth will be required in the country.

At the moment, the experts estimate that the total bandwidth consumed in the country is to the tune of 15 gigabits.

But currently data constitutes only 5 per cent of the ILD business. Whether the project will be taken up by Flag or by any other Reliance firm is still not clear.

Reliance's under-sea cable comes at a time when many companies have announced their intention to take up under-sea cable projects from India.

Data Access has tied up with the Bahrain government and construction major Al Amudi Corporation in Saudi Arabia for a cable linking Mumbai with Bahrain (where a new landing station is being built). The project is valued at $100 million with a capacity of 8 terabits.

VSNL has also announced its intention to build a new under sea cable connecting Chennai with Singapore for an investment of US $ 120 million.

The project is already off the ground and is expected to be completed by 12 to 18 months. Bharti-Singtel through there joint venture have already laid out a 8 terabit capacity under sea cable which connects Chennai to Singapore.

Of course more new capacity is being added on the India-Europe route -one of the most lucrative routes for bandwidth owners. SeaMe3 3 -the consortium cable in which VSNL is a partner has recently decided to augment its capacity by 38%.

Then VSNL is a key part of a consortium which is building SeaMeWe4 which is expected to come in operation in 2005. It is also part of another under sea cable called Safe which links India to Europe via Africa.