Indian undersea cable landing stations increase their capacity by nine times between 2016-2021: TRAI report

Undersea cable operators have massively increased their capacity in India between 2016 and 2021. As data usage increases massively in the country, data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shows that the total activated capacity of cable landing stations increased nine times over, and lit capacity increased by four times.

The TRAI report also stated that India’s international bandwidth demand would become tenfold by 2028, as international bandwidth is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 38 per cent. 

Year-wise total lit and activated capacity of India (as reported by ILDOs)

As of now, India has 17 submarine cables coming from different parts of the world to connect with the terrestrial networks at the cable landing stations near the coast.

Mumbai and Chennai have the maximum concentration of submarine cables. Also, new submarine cables, under planning or construction, will make landfall at the different coastal cities , including some recent locations like Digha (in West Bengal) and Mahuva (in Gujarat), according to the TRAI report. 

India is experiencing an influx in its data centres due to its significant market potential and relaxed policies and regulatory environment. India currently has 11 cloud regions as of June 2022. Google recently launched a region in Delhi in 2021, and both AWS and Microsoft Azure plan to launch regions in Hyderabad soon, according to the TRAI report. 

Why do they matter?

An undersea cable enables international connectivity.

A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. Undersea cable connectivity enables Indians to connect to the global internet network.

Indian IT enterprises also require the increasing proliferation of undersea cable connectivity as they increasingly adopt cloud connectivity solutions.