wiredInUSA October 2018

New route offers faster connections

Network changes hands

In a deal worth around $4.2 billion, the Indian telecommunications firm Reliance Communications (RCom) has completed the sale of its fiber optic network to Reliance Jio. RCom has been looking to sell its telecoms assets to alleviate increasing debt. “With the successful completion of the fiber monetization transaction, 178,000km [of] fiber stand transferred to Reliance Jio,” wrote The Economic Times of India, quoting an RCom spokesperson. RCom is said to be still considering two other bids for the remaining telecoms architecture (excluding the fiber optic network), with both bids reported to be in excess of $1.1 billion. Reliance Jio has pledged to roll out full fiber- to-the-home services across 1,100 Indian towns and cities.

Photo by Marc Sendra martorell on Unsplash

A fiber optic cable project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will begin commercial operations by the end of 2018. Chinese companies, including China Telecom, have expressed interest in diverting their telecom traffic away from an undersea cable, through India, to the new fiber optic cable between China and Pakistan. The project is owned by the military-run Special Communications Organization (SCO) with engineering, procurement and construction carried out by Huawei. “Phone calls will come from China to Pakistan through the fiber optic cable and then they will be routed to Middle Eastern countries, Europe, Africa, Iran and Afghanistan,” said Huawei project director Ashraf Malik. He said coordination with some Chinese companies, such as China Telecom, was ongoing to put traffic on the new cable network, which would build trust among other Chinese companies and encourage them to use the new route.

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wiredInUSA - October 2018