Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), a subsidiary of Reliance Communications (RCOM), will construct a new EAGLE submarine cable system.
The strategy of GCX is to deliver the latest subsea cable technology on 100G platform to meet Cloud infrastructure and capacity demands from global enterprises and OTTs.
Reliance Communications, which is facing significant financial issues, did not reveal the investment for setting up the new EAGLE submarine cable system as part of Cloud and Fiber Initiative.
“Nearly half the world’s population is reachable within a short distance from India’s borders, giving India a strategic edge in the new digital era,” said Bill Barney, CEO, RCOM and chairman and CEO of GCX.
Technology vendors such as Ciena, Infinera, Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent submarine, among others are in the race for the project.
“Digital transformation of industries is driving accelerated growth of Cloud services in the Asia Pacific region,” said Manoj Menon, managing director, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific. “China along with the emerging economies of India, Indonesia and Thailand are the front runners of this growth.”
The new EAGLE cable system will be the fastest Mumbai to Hong Kong route, avoiding the outage-prone Malacca Strait. In addition, EAGLE will also be the fastest submarine route between India and key technology centers across the Middle East and Europe.
“Demand for bandwidth connected to Asian countries is expected to increase over 10-fold between 2017 and 2023 and bandwidth linking Europe to Middle East and Asian countries is forecast to surge 7-fold during the same period,” said Alan Mauldin, research director, TeleGeography.
The new EAGLE cable system will allow companies to rent and own subsea capacity from speeds of 10 Gbps to several 100s of Gbps between India and key technology centers across Asia, Middle East and Europe.
“With flexible access speeds and open co-location, the system will also enable growing number of OTT start-ups, new generation carriers and smaller Cloud operators to buy and rent fiber affordably in a scalable model,” said Wilfred Kwan, chief operating officer, RCOM Enterprise & GCX.
Based on 100G technology, the cable network will be four/six fiber pair systems with initial design capacity of 12-24Tbps per fiber pair, using next generation Coherent Submarine Fiber. The EAGLE subsea cable will land in the fastest growing key markets of Asia, Middle East and Europe.
EAGLE will go east from Mumbai via Thailand to Hong Kong, running approximately 7,750 kms with landing points in Singapore and other branching units delivering high speed capacity to and from its India hub.
EAGLE going west will route from Mumbai via the Middle East to Italy with almost 8,900 kms of diverse routing and landing points within the Mediterranean and low latency subsea routing from Europe to India and beyond.
EAGLE cable system will create IP and Cloud environment across the Emerging Markets Corridor into GCX’s Cloud ecosystem, connecting data centers and economies along the route to its India hub.
