Undersea Cable Network | 24 Dec 2024

Source: TH 

India is set to launch two new cable systems in the coming months namely India Asia Xpress (IAX) and India Europe Xpress (IEX). 

• IAX connects Chennai and Mumbai with Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in Asia while IEX connects them with France, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Djibouti. 
• Undersea Cable (Submarine Cables): 
  • They are high-capacity optic fibre cables laid on the ocean floor that play a crucial role in providing global connectivity for high-speed data exchange. 
  • Fiber optic cables that use fast-traveling pulses of light to transfer digital information. It relies on total internal reflection for their operation.  
  • Lasers on one end fire at extremely rapid rates down thin glass fibers to receptors at the other end of the cable.  
    • These glass fibers are wrapped in layers of plastic (and sometimes steel wire) for protection. 
  • They provide unlimited bandwidth and very low latency compared to satellite communication which face risks from space weather, radiation, and debris.  
• As of 2023, India had 17 international subsea cables landing in 14 distinct stations across five cities, with a cumulative lit capacity of 138.55 terabits per second (tbps) and activated capacity of 111.11 tbps.

Read More: Fibre Optic Cables