Google Announces Three New Indian Subsea Fibre Optic Cables

Google announced today a $15 billion dollar infrastructure investment in India that includes a new cable landing station in Visakhapatnam (Vizag), a Mumbai to Perth subsea link, a cable connecting Vizag to Singapore via a Malaysian landing (like Bay of Bengal Gateway), a subsea network between Chennai and Vizag, and a major cable from Vizag to Capetown. Although hyperscalers are frequent targets of criticism, one cannot say they lack ambition. 😀 Google's connectivity investments aim to create seamless, high capacity cables connecting India to the US using new and physically diverse routes.

1. First cable from India's West Coast to Australia.

2. First Indian  cable to South Africa.

3. Creation of a third Indian subsea hub in Vizag to improve cable landing diversity.

4. A cable link between India's two East Coast subsea and telecom hubs.

5. India's second cable to reach Singapore via Malaysian overland routes.


Remarks:

1. I think Sify is like to be the cable landing operator in Vizag. They already host the Blue-Raman cable landing station in Mumbai. Blue Raman is still unfinished. One source contents Bharti Airtel will be the CLS operator, but it is possible they are confusing an AI data center project nearby with the CLS project. 

2. Facebook will be using the same Vizag CLS for its Waterworth project.

3. Given the state of spatial division multiplexing, the cable landing at Capetown will likely have 16-24 fibre pairs.

4. The India to Singapore link is most likely 24 fibre pairs because the distance is relatively short.

5. It is not completely clear whether the fibre optic connection between Chennai and Vizag is subsea or terrestrial. The Google press release is vague on this point.

Map of Google's Three New Indian Fibre Optic Subsea Cables


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