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Investment on Bombay-Singapore submarine cables deferred

Bharati Aquanet, a joint venture between Bharati Televentures and Singtel of Singapore, have deferred by a year the second phase of investment of $400 million to link Bombay and Singapore by submarine cables.

Bharati Televentures corporate director (projects) Viresh Dayal told newspersons in Bangalore on Friday that the recession in the industry had led to the delay in the project.

However, the first phase of submarine cabling between Singapore and Madras would be completed by the first quarter of next year. The $250 million dollar project was fast nearing completion with the cable station in Madras getting ready.

Singtel, Asia's leading communication company, was setting up a state-of-the-art new generation submarine cable system design to carry 8.4 terabits per second between Madras and Singapore.

He said the first phase would also have a land link between Madras and Bombay via Hyderabad and Bangalore separately. It would also have a Bombay-Delhi link.

Dayal said the company had already firmed up clients for the first phase of operation in which 160 gigabits would be offered.

The terrestrial spread would be covered by another Bharati venture, Bharati Telesonic. It would provide extensive domestic reach covering 151 cities by the end of this year.

By March 2003, the backbone network would cover 205 cities with 25,000 km of optical fibre.

Network i2i of Singtel chief executive officer Yoong Hong Siang said the network would be operational when the Union government opened up the long distance international communication system.

UNI

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