Trai seeks RCom plan to deal with submarine cable faults

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has sought details of the arrangements made by Reliance Communications (RCom) to restore bandwidth in case of failure of submarine cables.
 
The move gains importance as four sub-sea cable systems on the trans-Atlantic route were severed on December 19, and telecom companies were re-routing traffic through the trans-Pacific leg. Bharti Airtel lands two cables – consortium cable SEA-ME-WE-4 (SMW-4) and own cable i2i – at its landing station in Chennai.
 
In a letter dated December 24, 2008, the regulator has also sought details of the arrangement made by RCom to re-route traffic "via alternative routes in cases of such failures".
 
"You would recall that in January and February of this year, SEA-ME-WE-4 and Flag cables were damaged and RCom had faced a similar situation. During the meeting you were asked to plan for such eventualities in future so that adequate bandwidth is available on alternate routes and Indian consumers and business organisations served by you do not suffer," TRAI said in a letter to RCom.
 
The regulator had also sought the date of the formal request and details of any of the meetings with senior Bharti Airtel officials. Sunil Mittal controlled Bharti Airtel lands two submarine cables – consortium cable SEA-ME-WE-4 (SMW-4) and own cable i2i – in Chennai.
 
When contacted an RCom spokesperson said: "In order to ensure the highest service delivery to our customers, Reliance Globalcom has capacity on 6 diverse cable routes out of India. The superior planning and provisioning ensured that 100 per cent uptime of International Private Leasedline Circuit (IPLC) and voice traffic, and high levels of Internet traffic. As the network goes for freeze during Christmas and New Years, additional capacity was sought on SMW-4 to ensure that there is no congestion even in case of surge in traffic levels".
 
"Reliance Globalcom is currently pursuing the world's largest undersea cable expansion project to add over 50,000 kms of fully-Internet Protocol enabled optic network. Reliance Globalcom's Hawk System, currently under construction in the Mediterranean region, once completed would further enhance the resilience and diversity," he added.
 
In a letter to the TRAI on December 24, RCom has stated that in order to improve availability of bandwidth to customers in India, it also requested Bharti to grant immediate access to its Chennai cable landing station.
 
This was to access 2 STM-16 bandwidths (a standard of Internet traffic) on SMW-4 cable system.
 
SMW-3, SMW-4, GO and Flag's Flag-Europe-Asia were the four sub-sea cable that were severed on December 19, after a ship reportedly dropped its anchor on them.