RCom, China Telecom launch terrestrial cable

Reliance Communications (RCom) and Chinese state-owned China Telecom have launched a terrestrial cable connecting East Asia with the Indian subcont-inent.

This cross-border cable will provide an alternative route for telecommunications connectivity between India, China, Hong Kong and Far East Asia.

The cable will cater to the voice, data and video connectivity needs of over 2.2 billion citizens of India and China, RCom said in a release here today.

Laid between Siliguri in India and Yadong in China via Nathu La, the terrabit capacity cable passes through difficult terrains, sub-zero temperature and touches an altitude of around 14,500 ft above sea level.

Previously, connectivity between the two countries was through undersea cable routes via Hong Kong or Singapore.

The link provides direct, dual cable route connectivity from emerging business locations within China to other international business hubs in Europe, West Asia and the US east coast.

It will also provide connectivity to South East Asia, Japan and the US (west coast) via the terrestrial cable system to Hong Kong and then on a submarine route, enabling lower latency and improved network resilience.

“India and China represent the largest growing economies in the world, and the current global economic environment requires ever increasing high-bandwidth, converged applications to be run between these markets,” said RCom President Punit Garg.

“This new cable will help our customers across Asia and beyond to effectively compete on a global scale, by providing increased network availability and secure connectivity from the world’s key business centres to these high growth markets,” he added.