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SAFE project to put Kochi on superhighway map

Our Bureau

KOCHI, Dec. 5

KOCHI is all set to become a prominent milestone on the international information superhighway, with the only landing point in India, when overall commissioning of the South Africa Far East (SAFE) optical fibre submarine cable system is completed by Dece mber 2001 connecting India with the African continent and the Far East.

Mr Vinoo Goyal, Director (Development), Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, said that the cable for the project was expected to land at Kochi by the beginning of January 2001.

VSNL is actively working with other international telecom administrations to implement the project.

Mr Goyal, who was here in connection with a 3-day management committee meeting of SAFE project alongwith other international telecom operators, said that the total cost of the project is estimated at Rs 231 crore.

VSNL, alongwith 42 telecom companies from 35 countries, is working to bring world class digital cable technology for providing infrastructure for various telecom and information technology services such as telephone, fax, data transmission, Internet, ISD N and video uplinking etc, he added.

Stretching a total distance of 28,800 km, the SAFE cable system would have a total capacity of 80 gigabits (GB) and would provide a great boost to the international telecom traffic throughout the African and South-East Asian region.

The landing point in India at Kochi would catalyse growth of basic and value-added telecom and IT enable services especially in Kerala and other parts of southern region.

With its only landing point on the Indian subcontinent at Kochi, SAFE cable would have other landing points at Cape Town, Bay Jacote in Mauritius, St Paul in Reunion and Penang in Malaysia. This connectivity was further extended upto Portugal, he added.

One of the major benefits of the project was that it would be owned, controlled and maintained by the individual operators.

It signifies that revenue generated by the Indian operator would remain in India, thus, contributing to the economic growth of the country.

The project would vastly improve the security of telecom links between Europe and Asia as an alternate route and would enhance the bandwidth for the mushrooming of telecom and multimedia traffic from these regions, Mr Goyal said.

The project's, funding to the tune of $600 million, has been fully secured and the financial guarantees were already in place. Survey of the entire route has been completed.

Manufacturing of the cable and equipments is nearing completion and the marine installation would commence very soon.

The SAFE cable system consists of two parts. One is a 15,000-km link between South Africa and Europe with landings at 10 western and southern African countries. The second segment would be a 13,800-km link from South Africa to Malaysia with intermediate landings at Reunion.

Mr Amitabh Kumar, Director (Operations), said that VSNL was implementing strategic plans to withstand the competition in the new economic scenario.

The company was already preparing to enter the domestic long distance telephony market.

Exploiting its synergies of massive bandwidth available through optical fibre and satellite connectivity, VSNL is poised for an pan-Indian network roll-out.