BIF Hosts India's First International Subsea Cable Systems Conference​

By Communications Today​
April 10, 2025

Given the urgent need for timely policy intervention and regulatory ease to transform India into a resilient and future-ready digital economy, Broadband India Forum (BIF) in association with the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP) organized India’s first-ever International Subsea Cable Systems Conference given the urgent need for timely policy intervention and regulatory ease to transform India into a resilient and future-ready digital economy. The Conference served as a strategic platform to deliberate on one of the most critical yet under-discussed pillars of global internet infrastructure—Subsea Cables.

India’s current international connectivity infrastructure is insufficient to support its growing digital ambitions. In line with the global trends, internet penetration in India is currently around 85% and additionally there has been a significant surge in the monthly data consumption both for mobile and fixed line broadband. Presently, wireline data consumption is estimated between 250-500 GB per month and mobile data consumption also continues to rise. While the proportion of fixed broadband in India is currently a mere 3% in comparison to major economies (where it is approx. 35-40%), with Government’s renewed focus now on wired broadband, per-user data consumption is projected to surge further. This growing demand urgently necessitates the proliferation of subsea cable systems and the expansion of associated Cable Landing Station (CLS) infrastructure to prevent capacity constraints and ensure seamless international connectivity.

Currently, the country holds just 3% of global subsea cables (17 out of the global total of 559) and just 14 CLSs on the main land (~ less than 1% of the 1,636 CLS locations worldwide)—a gap that must be urgently bridged. This indicates an urgent need for a 4–5X increase in subsea cable capacity and a 10X expansion of CLS infrastructure. Further, given there are no back-up plans to re-route traffic of high-capacity cables landing in India, it becomes imperative to create alternative landing sites in cities on ~ 7000 Km coastline, especially beyond congested zones like Mumbai, to enhance redundancy and reduce vulnerability. Government should also prioritise identifying new CLS sites with all approvals. Given the emerging geopolitical threats and vulnerabilities of choke points like the South China Sea and Red Sea, there is need to work towards geographical diversity of subsea cable routes.

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