Seaborn Networks and IOX Cable Ltd are teaming up to offer a new way to send bits from North America to India.
The plan is to leverage Seaborn's new Seabras-1 subsea cable to Brazil, the soon to be built SABR system from there over to southern Africa, and then the proposed IOX system across the Indian ocean to India.
Right now, there are basically two ways to send data between the marekts at any scale. You can either hop on a transatlantic cable, make your way to Marseille, and hop on a cable through the Red Sea and over to Mumbai, or you can jump the other way on a transpacific cable, make your way to Singapore, and get a lift over to Chennai.
Both options have built-in geographical diversity issues, which makes the Seabras-1+SABR+IOX option an interesting alternative. It's probably not shorter but it's definitely diverse.
Interestingly, the alliance hooks up three of the so-called BRICS countries directly. In fact, it's one cable away from actually implementing the once-proposed BRICS cable system. But while I can easily see a link to China being added to the mix, I still rather doubt the final Vladivostok link is ready for prime time.
It'll be a while though. SABR and IOX are still a couple years away from being ready for operation.
This article was authored by Rob Powell and was originally posted on Telecomramblings.com
Rob Powell is founder & editor of Telecom Ramblings, which was set up in 2008. The website is dedicated to discussing trends and developments in the telecom industry.