India expands submarine cable network, prioritizing web resilience

India’s undersea cable network is growing as data usage increases every year. Two new cable systems are set to launch in the next three months: India Asia Xpress (IAX), and India Europe Xpress (IEX), both connecting India with additional Internet links on two continents. It also comes as India takes a more active role in discussions about submarine cable security and resilience.

Both cable systems, cumulatively 15,000 km in length, are owned by Reliance Jio with strategic investment from China Mobile. IAX connects Chennai and Mumbai to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in Asia and IEX connects them to France, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Djibouti. It lands dozens of cables in India mainly in Mumbai and Chennai.

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Cable expansion reflects not only increased traffic but also growing geopolitical ambitions, Jagannath Panda, head of South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) in Sweden, wrote recently. The new cable systems strengthen India’s “defense strategy in terms of resilience of cables against physical damage or digital disruptions caused by cyber attacks by state or non-state actors,” Mr. Panda wrote in a letter. Maritime policy journal.

“India is emerging as a strong submarine cable network player in the region,” Mr. Panda said in an interview. “The focus will be on the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea region, and India’s active role will be closely watched, and India will not shy away from taking a leading role there,” he said.

In March, three submarine cables connecting India to West Asia and Europe were disrupted, affecting traffic to India. While that incident impacted India’s international bandwidth, traffic still flowed through alternate routes, with data centers within India also buffering against disruptions to major Internet services.

Warnings about disruptions in connectivity are felt globally, and India is no exception. Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal is part of the International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience (IABSR) set up by the International Telecommunication Union. IT Secretary S Krishnan asked at an event earlier this month, “Are we stable within the country that all services within the country can be offered even in the event of a disruption?”

Bangladesh Connection

The Bangladeshi government recently blocked plans by that country’s Internet service providers to sell bandwidth to northeastern India, according to local media reports. However, the setback has limited implications for India, said Suvesh Chattopadhyay, a veteran of the undersea cable industry. Fiber laid atop the Power Grid Corporation of India’s transmission lines already serves the northeastern states, and the fiber accounts for “hundreds of gigabits per second” of connectivity, Mr. Chattopadhyay said, more than enough for current connectivity needs.

SCSA-IPA’s Mr. Panda said despite this recent move, Bangladesh will continue to engage India at strategic and official levels on connectivity issues, and the country will not “close the door” on the matter. More than half of Bangladesh’s Internet traffic bandwidth comes from India, Mr. Chattopadhyay said, because the country has two submarine cables laid there.

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There is no doubt that using military force to prevent sabotage of submarine cables will undoubtedly be on the agenda for the IABSR, Mr. Chattopadhyay said, pointing to the issue of choke points, which was brought into focus during the Red Sea crisis. “All four cables from Mumbai and Chennai to Singapore pass through the Malacca Strait between Indonesia and Malaysia,” he said. “If there’s a major incident, it could affect all four.”

Similarly, he said that a solution is being sought to connect India and Singapore by bypassing the Strait of Malacca. “But we don’t have that solution yet,” he said. For telecoms and large tech companies looking to avoid connectivity loss in the event of submarine cable damage, he said, it was standard to purchase bandwidth over multiple routes for redundancy.