CONCERNS ARISE OVER SAFETY OF INDIA'S UNDERSEA DATA CABLES

To disrupt the internet connectivity in any country, including India, the enemy country or entity will just have to damage the majority of these cables.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

By the end of 2021, the total volume of wireless data consumed by India was around 32,500 petabytes or around 32,500,000,000 gigabytes (GB). One thousand gigabytes make 1 terabyte and 1,000 terabytes add to 1 petabyte.
Over 95% of all the world’s digital data travels through undersea cables—a vast network of about 550 undersea-cable networks, lying on the sea bed, measuring roughly 1.4 million kilometers, which is the size of a garden hose which covers and protects a human hair size filament that transfers all these data.

In India, these submarine cables, which are a part of a global network of cables that carry data, “land” at multiple places—Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Tuticorin, Chennai and Kochi. Apart from these cities, another international landing station is coming up at Mundra, Gujarat, while there are two domestic landing stations at Chennai that connect Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and one at Kochi, which connects the 11 islands of Lakshadweep.

According to data, in India, by the end of 2022, 17 international subsea cables landed in 14 distinct cable landing stations across the different cities mentioned earlier.

The possibility of the colossal damage that can be caused to India’s economy by simply sabotaging these undersea cables, however, does not seem to have registered among relevant offices in India. Once anything like this happens, the authorities are likely to be caught unawares.