Subsea cable companies seek decongestion of Mumbai landing spot

Mumbai: The subsea cable industry has called on the government to decongest the landing station at Versova in Mumbai, where 15 out of 17 international cables are landed in a 6 km stretch, as India prepares to ready infrastructure to cater to the surging growth in demand for data.

In its recommendations to the telecom department (DoT), the industry, through lobby body Broadband India Forum (BIF), has highlighted that the concentration at Versova creates heavy risk of cuts and failures.

India has 17 subsea cables (3% of the global total of 559) and 14 cable landing stations (CLS) on the mainland (less than 1% of the 1,636 CLS locations worldwide). A CLS is a facility located on the coast where sea cables carrying international traffic connect with terrestrial telecom networks. India is expected to see a jump in the need for CLS. Subsea cables carry 99% of the world's internet traffic and are emerging as critical infrastructure to address the surging demand for data in India.