Singapore/Marseille Route Bypass Of Red Sea And Egypt: Part 1

I've seen a lot of interest in routes bypassing the Red Sea and Egypt. Not surprising given the triple whammy of AAE1, EIG, and Seacom/Tata outages lasting over four months. It is possible to devise end-to-end Frankfurt/Singapore and Marseille/Singapore bypass routes by using subsea cables that connect Mumbai or Oman to Singapore. That part is relatively easy and straightforward. As the chart below shows, there are lots of subsea cables connecting the two great cities. 

Map of Indian Ocean fibre optic undersea cables.

The key India/Singapore cables include

1. I2I. Bharti Airtel cable. 

2. Tata Indicom. 

3. Mist (2025).

4. AAE1.

5. Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG)

6. India Asia Express (IAX).

7. SWM4, SWM5, and soon SWM6. 

8. Several more. 

Neither I2I nor Indicom are useful in constructing bypass routes because their owners charge extremely high prices. The Bay of Bengal cable is standard in bypass solutions for two reasons. Its capacity is less expensive and it also lands in Oman, thereby completely avoiding the problems associated with Indian cable landing stations. Furthermore, the cable is in the same Oman CLS as other cables and the cross connect charges unusually low.  In general, the large consortium cables like SMW5 and AAE1 are dead ends because Bharti is usually the  Mumbai cable landing operator and uses the CLS bottleneck to box out potential competition. This blocking is accompanied by high prices for both the international connectivity and its back haul complement. It is best to avoid India if possible for bypass. Connecting Singapore durectly to Oman is your best bet. 

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