The Mukesh Ambani-led Rs 1.5 lakh crore telecom start-up Reliance Jio on Monday announced the start of an 8,100 kilometres long, Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) cable system.
This cable system, which interconnects with existing cable systems and provides direct connectivity to South East Asia and the Middle East, then onward to Europe, Africa and Far East Asia, was expected to carry commercial traffic by the end of 2014.
The BBG cable will have an initial equipped capacity of nine terabits per second. Two branches of the ultra high speed communications system would connect India at Chennai and Mumbai . Reliance Jio owns and operates the undersea cable landing facility in Chennai, while the Mumbai landing is being handled by Vodafone.
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The BBG international consortium members include Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) (Malaysia), Vodafone Group (UK), Omantel (Oman), Etisalat (UAE), Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (India) and Dialog Axiata (Sri Lanka).
The consortium had signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) and the Supply Contract for BBG in Kuala Lumpur in April 2013. “BBG is one of the new cable systems in the region in which Reliance Jio has invested as part of its broadband plans,” the company said.
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