Reliance Jio to construct 2 other submarine cable system after BBG and AAE-1

Reliance Jio will be deploying two next generation cables to support the growing demand for data in India. The project will be completed in partnership with several global players and SubCom, a world leader in undersea cable supply.

The two cable projects, India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) and India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) will connect India to Singapore, and India to the Middle East and Europe. India will be connected to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia in the east and will land in Italy after connecting with countries like Egypt, Djibouti and Saudi Arabia in the west. The two cable systems will interconnect and be connected to the important global data interexchange points.

The company said,

"IAX and IEX will enhance the ability for consumer and enterprise users to access content and cloud services in and out of India."

"For the first time in the history of fiber optic submarine telecommunications, these systems place India at the center of the international network map, recognizing India’s increased importance, staggering growth and the quantum shift in data use since the launch of Jio services in 2016," a statement read.

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The two cable systems will be running over 16,000 km and will be providing high-capacity and high-speed capacity to the region. The IEX and IAX are expected to provide more than 200Tbps of capacity

IAX is expected to be ready for service mid 2023, while IEX will be ready for service in early 2024.

For your understanding how bandwidth requirements exploded

International Bandwidth owned by different operators in India over years:

Oct'16 - 2.08Tbps (Before Jio launch)
Sep'19 - 15.52Tbps
Dec'19 - 16.04Tbps (Before lockdown)
Sep'20 - 18.24Tbps
Dec'20 - 20.8Tbps

Source: TRAI performance report