Telecom Lead Asia: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm has joined a consortium for setting up the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) submarine cable system.
Interestingly, Reliance Jio Infocomm, the only pan-India 4G / LTE service provider in India, is the only telecom operator from India to participate in the submarine cable system consortium.
Reliance Jio Infocomm did not disclose financial details of the cable system that is expected to carry commercial traffic by end of 2014.
Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent signed a turn-key contract to deploy the new 100G submarine cable system.
Philippe Dumont, president of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: “As a leader in advanced coherent technology, Alcatel-Lucent’s 100G technology and advances in its branching unit set a new benchmark for the supply of fully robust high capacity systems with a clear upgrade path to higher speeds.”
Recently, Reliance Jio Infocomm announced its partnership with Airtel and Reliance Communications to share its infrastructure that will speed up the roll out of 4G services across the country.
It is believed that Reliance Jio Infocomm will soft launch 4G in Gujarat by June / July. The commercial launch of 4G service is expected by the year end. Mumbai and Delhi are the first few cities that are expected to see TD-LTE services in 2013.
The submarine cable system – using the 100G technology — spans around 8,000 km, will link Malaysia (through Penang) and Singapore to the Middle East (Oman and United Arab Emirates) with connections reaching out to India (Mumbai and Chennai) and Sri Lanka.
The other members of the consortium for setting up the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) submarine cable system include: Telekom Malaysia (TM) (Malaysia), Vodafone Group (UK), Omantel (Oman), Etisalat (UAE) and Dialog Axiata (Sri Lanka).
The consortium members signed the construction and maintenance agreement (C&MA) and the supply contract for BBG in Kuala Lumpur today.
Rozaimy Rahman, executive vice president, Global & Wholesale, TM; Rick Perry, head of International Development, Vodafone Group Technology, Vodafone; Ali Amiri, executive vice president, Carrier and Wholesale, Etisalat; Sohail Qadir, vice president, Omantel; Mathew Oommen, president, Reliance Jio Infocomm; and Hans Wijayasuriya, group chief executive officer of Dialog Axiata Sri Lanka signed the consortium agreement.
The construction of BBG will provide connectivity among South East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, the Far East Asia through interconnections with other existing and newly built cable systems landing in India, the Middle East and the Far East Asia.
