The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday issued the consultation paper on ‘Licensing Framework and Regulatory Mechanism for Submarine Cable Landing in India’ and sought comments from stakeholders on the same.
Submarine cables are vital communication infrastructure of the digital age and critical to today’s fast-paced data driven economy. The global extensive network of submarine communication cables traverses the maritime zones of several countries connecting people and businesses across the globe.
According to data received from owners of Cable Landing Station, India has around 17 submarine cables terminating at 14 distinct cable landing stations. In addition, a number of new submarine cables are in pipeline for rollout, which will make landfall at different coastal cities of India.
On issues
The regulator has sought comments on issues such as what limitations are being posed by existing licensing and regulatory provisions for laying submarine cables and setting up of CLS in India; and would an undersea cable repair vessel owned by an Indian entity help overcome the issues related to delays in undersea cable maintenance.
“Presently, there is no Indian marine service provider available who can support the submarine maintenance activities in and around Indian waters. Dependency on foreign vessels/service providers involves high mobilisation time for the repair vessel to mobilised from different locations in world map,” TRAI said.
Authority, in the present consultation paper, is seeking views of stakeholder on need and feasibility of Indian flagged vessel for carrying out submarine cable operation and maintenance smoothly in time-efficient manner.
“Also, as the reliability and stability of submarine cable networks is very high as compared with the terrestrial optical fibre cable network, domestic submarine cables can be envisaged to improve digital connectivity/infrastructure of Tier- I and Tier-II cities on the Indian coast,” it said.
The regulator is also seeking comments on what measures should be undertaken for promoting domestic submarine cables for connecting coastal cities in India and what limitations are being posed by existing licensing and regulatory provisions for laying domestic submarine cables in India.
TRAI has sought written comments on the consultation paper are invited from the stakeholders by January 20 and counter comments by February 3.