Sify sets up cable landing station in Mumbai

Sify, a broadband company, on Wednesday opened an undersea landing station in Versova, Mumbai, and announced partnership with two cable companies to offer Indian carriers and enterprises enhanced high-speed data services between India, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Of the two cable firms, the Middle East submarine cable system, Gulf Bridge International, has started operations, while Egypt’s telecommunications operator, MENA Submarine Cable System SAE, will start operations in July-August. 

Sify’s Versova landing station, which has the capacity for four cable systems at a time, may see two other cable systems attached to its hub in the next 12-18 months, Raju Vegesna, promoter and chief managing director, Sify said.

Announcing Sify’s transformation from a pure-play broadband provider to an information and communications technology (ICT) services provider offering services such as cloud computing, data centre virtualisation, managed services, and voice over internet protocol, Vegesna said, “We have invested Rs400-500 crore in the last three years for expansion of our networks and data centres in the country. We plan to invest a similar amount in the next three years for expansion of our ICT services.”

Sify also plans to double its current 1,500 base stations within 12-18 months to boost its ICT offerings.

Sify had signed deal with Gulf Bridge, a 7,000 km fibre cable system, linking 17 countries from the UK to India at a capacity of 2.56 terabits (TB) per second in India.

Samih Kawar, chief technical officer, Gulf Bridge, said, “We chose to partner with Sify, as we were looking for a smaller, non pure-wholesale company to take forward our strategy and expansion plans as an open access cable landing platform. Thus, we have no intentions of competing with companies like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries or Tata Communications, but instead would like to be known as a carrier’s carrier offering services to any telecom or IT company in India.”