IT sector seeks better infrastructure

Undersea cable termination facility on the list

In spite of the fact that Gujarat has the longest coastline (1,600 km) in the country, the information technology (IT) industry in the state has been facing lack of a major infrastructure need""undersea cable termination facility, denying the advantage of being a landing point for international submarine cables to the state.

IT industry experts here now have placed a demand for undersea cable termination facility before the state government recently and also plan to put the same demand before the newly-elected Union government.

The facility would substantially improve voice and data services within the state and also give boost to a flourish bandwidth business being carried out by the companies based in Gujarat.

A recent representation of industry experts under the banner of Gujarat Electronics and Software Industries Association (Gesia) has urged the state government to take up the issue in right earnest while also inviting private participation in such projects.

"Gujarat has the largest coastline in India and there are several ports where international leased lines could be terminated as is happening at present in Mumbai and Kochi. This will reduce the cost for IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) companies in Gujarat significantly and make the state more attractive for such firms," said a report prepared by Gesia and presented to the state government.

Kochi, in Kerala, has the unique connectivity advantage of being the landing point of two major international submarine cables linking the US, Europe and the Far East countries.

All IT parks partially or fully promoted by the Kerala government would be connected by optical fibre cable (OFC) network to the Kochi gateway thus helping the IT and ITES companies not only to reduce cost but also to improve their work capacity significantly.

Data communication bandwidth, a strategic input for the IT sector, shall be thus made available to IT industry through the network with assured quality of service across Kerala and such facilities are also need to be made in Gujarat.

"Three years back, central government barred Gujarat from creating any undersea cable termination facility because of its proximity to the international border. But later we discussed the issue with former chief minister Keshubhai Patel. Patel took up the matter with the then IT minister Pramod Mahajan about a year back resulting in the Centre withdrawing its earlier 'security sensitive status' for Gujarat and allowed investors to set up such facilities here, but now there is no interest shown by big players such as Bharti Tele, Reliance as these companies have already created such facilities elsewhere in the country," said Chirag Mehta, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director of Icenet.net Ltd, one of the key internet service providers (ISPs) in the country.

Mehta also opined that as the Chinese government has set up such facilities to provide 11 GBPS bandwidth connection to local IT industry and users, the Gujarat government should also follow suit and establish such undersea cable termination facility in the state. It should also invite private participation for such projects.

Karnataka has submarine OFC cable link within six km of Mangalore, and in Tamil Nadu, the world's biggest submarine OFC project-The i2i Network, a joint venture of Bharti Enterprises and Singapore Telecom connecting Chennai and Singapore, has recently commenced operations and internet service providers, such as Icenet, are now buying internet connections from it to cater to their own clients.