TRAI moves to strengthen undersea cable for digitization push
By Sanjay Singh
New Delhi, June 24: As India is fast progressing towards becoming a digital superpower, with its ambitious move to effectively accomplish towards pan-India digitization, India’s telecom watchdog, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on June 20 issued recommendations on rules for undersea cables connecting Indian telecom networks to the global Internet.
The new set of recommendations by TRAI that would follow later, post discussions with industry stakeholders, is crucial for India’s digitization expansion. TRAI has recommended that all Indian telecom companies operating undersea cables be required to submit proof that they own at least the part of undersea cables that is in Indian waters.
The telecom regulator also suggested that undersea cables should come under the scope of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC), indicating government’s seriousness to ensure seamless digital connectivity across the country and at the same time ensure that India further penetrates deep inside to create a viable market for the emerging and new-age technology-based industries.
India is expected to surpass China as the most populous nation in the world and overtake Japan as the world’s third largest economy as well. It will likely remain the fastest growing large economy throughout this decade, and perhaps longer. India’s demographic and economic trends also point to it becoming a digital superpower.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sought TRAI’s inputs on a specific concern: whether Indian firms without a major stake in undersea cables, usually built by high-powered global consortiums, should be allowed to apply for clearances acting alone.
At present, India has around 17 submarine cables terminating at 14 distinct cable landing stations in five cities namely Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Tuticorin and Trivandrum. Till 2021, the available and used capacity of these cables amounted to 124 and 84 Tera Bytes per second (Tbps), respectively.
India’s digital consumer market is one of the fastest growing and world’s largest as well. India’s digital economy has gone up twice the rate of its economy and its 5G expansion is on its way to ring US$1 trillion by 2025-26.
India currently has over 836 million internet subscribers with highest average data usage in the world. At the same time, India’s data traffic grew by 31 per cent in 2021, with mobile data approaching 17 giga bytes (GB) per user per month. In the next five years, India is expected to expand broadband access to over 80 per cent of Indians with average usage of 40 GB per month.
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