Reliance Communications, an India-based integrated telecommunications service provider, and China Telecom have announced the opening of the first direct terrestrial cable link between the Chinese and Indian domestic markets.

 

The Reliance Communications (News - Alert) and China Telecom constructed cable was the first cross border terrestrial connectivity project to be planned between India and China, and was completed earlier this month.

 

Reliance officials said that the cable will provide direct, enterprise class connectivity between all major Indian and Chinese locations as well as expanding high-bandwidth coverage to more rural regions and cities in both countries.

 

Officials said that neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan and Bangladesh are also expected to benefit in the longer term, through increased bandwidth availability and global termination options.

 

“This announcement and cable connection is a landmark, which represents many years of planning and hard work,” said Han YiHu, managing director of China Telecom (News - Alert), in a statement.

 

YiHu said that his company is very pleased with the increased dedicated bandwidth availability, connection speed and security this cable will provide to Chinese based enterprises and consumers.

 

He said that it will greatly assist the company’s customers to become global industry leaders, while improving opportunities for international business development in both India and China.

 

China Telecommunications Corporation (News - Alert) is a State-owned telecom operator in China.

“India and China represent the largest growing economies in the world, and the current global economic environment requires ever increasing high-bandwidth, converged applications to be run between these markets,” said Punit Garg, president, Reliance Communications.

 

Garg said that this new cable will help the company’s customers across Asia and beyond to effectively compete on a global scale by providing increased network availability and secure connectivity from the world’s key business centers to these high growth markets. 

“We are very pleased that Reliance Globalcom’s (News - Alert) global network will play a major role in the development of international business opportunities in the region,” he added.

 

Reliance Globalcom, a division of Reliance Communications, spearheads the global telecom operations of the integrated telecom service provider.