VSNL eyes cable-laying ship on lease

The Tata group-controlled Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) is planning to take more cable laying ships on lease and set up a cable depot in Kochi.

The company is also considering acquisition of a cable ship for laying submarine optic fibre systems to boost international connectivity.

"In order to meet the maintenance and repair works of undersea fibre systems in the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, VSNL plans to take more cable laying ships on lease. We are talking to the Kochi Port Trust for one acre land to set up a cable depot at an estimated investment of Rs 10 crore," a VSNL source said.

At present, the company has deployed one cable laying ship from the UK-based company Asean Explorer. The proposed cable depot and vessel acquisition are expected to bring down the cost substantially, the source said.

The company is in dialogue with various shipping firms for chartering cable ships and Kochi Port authorities for the proposed depot plan. However, nothing has been finalised yet on this project, the source said.

"The proposed cable fleet will be based in Kochi and will focus on the maintenance works of Chennai, Kochi and Mumbai land stations," the source said. There are several landing points for international cable network in India, including SEA-ME-WE (South East Asia- Middle East-Western Europe) and Tata Indicom Cable (TIC).

The concept of cable depot is in line with the company's objective to provide better end-to-end connectivity to its enterprise and broadband customers in the wake of the exponential increase in the international bandwidth demand, the source added.