The latest telecom news includes announcements on XLSMART, Surya Global Indonesia, Kerala Fibre Optic Network, CANDLE Subsea Cable, and others.
XLSMART Advances 8,000-km CANDLE Subsea Cable Connecting Six Asian Markets
XLSMART has reached another physical construction milestone on its approximately 8,000-km CANDLE submarine cable, completing the Golden Buoy landing at Tanjung Bemban in Batam. The system is being developed to connect Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan, creating another regional fiber route between some of Asia’s largest digital markets. Development has been underway since December 2024, with the latest landing demonstrating progress from planning into physical network construction. The cable is intended to add international capacity and route diversity as cloud, data-center and AI traffic increases across Asia. For Indonesia, additional submarine routes are particularly important because the country’s island geography makes domestic and international connectivity heavily dependent on resilient subsea infrastructure.
SGI Plans 6,870-km Subsea Backbone Across Indonesia
Surya Global Indonesia and consortium partners are developing a proposed 6,870-km submarine cable network designed to strengthen domestic telecommunications capacity across the Indonesian archipelago. The project would create a large new fiber backbone linking multiple islands and connectivity hubs, providing additional transport capacity for mobile operators, broadband providers, data centers and cloud infrastructure. Indonesia’s geography makes subsea fiber fundamental to national telecom infrastructure because terrestrial networks cannot directly connect thousands of inhabited islands. New routes can also provide redundancy when existing systems experience cable faults. The planned 6,870-km system comes as Indonesian operators face increasing mobile and fixed broadband traffic and data-center investment, requiring substantially more backbone capacity between major population centres and international submarine cable landing locations.
Azerbaijan–Kazakhstan Caspian Subsea Fiber Targets Commercial Launch by End-2026
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are targeting the end of 2026 for commissioning their long-planned fiber-optic cable across the Caspian Sea. The Trans-Caspian system will establish a direct digital route between the two countries and form an important segment of a broader telecommunications corridor connecting Europe with Central Asia. The project is strategically significant because it provides another path for international data traffic without depending entirely on traditional routes through Russia or southern corridors. The new cable will connect terrestrial backbone infrastructure on both sides of the Caspian, improving route diversity and supporting growing cloud, enterprise and telecom traffic across Central Asia. Reaching the commissioning stage this year would turn a project discussed for several years into operational international network infrastructure.
Kerala Fibre Optic Network Crosses 200,000 Connections on 34,505-km Fiber Infrastructure
Kerala Fibre Optic Network has crossed 200,000 active connections, marking another scale milestone for India’s state-backed broadband infrastructure programme. KFON reported 200,073 connections spanning households, government offices, institutions, businesses and free connections provided to eligible below-poverty-line families. The network now extends across more than 34,505 km of fiber and operates with support from approximately 3,800 Local Network Providers handling last-mile connectivity. KFON was designed as a statewide digital backbone rather than a conventional private telecom network, using common fiber infrastructure to improve broadband availability across Kerala. The 200,000-connection milestone demonstrates increasing utilisation of the network after its initial infrastructure buildout and gives the state a larger base from which to expand household and institutional broadband services.
