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Inside TATA Communications World's Largest Fibre Network handling 24% of the Global Internet Traffic

Chanakya's_Chant

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More than 99% of the internet traffic relies on high quality fiber optic cables connecting various countries. Only a minuscule part of the traffic goes through satellites.

These cable networks are laid and maintained by various governments and giant companies. Such projects are usually undertaken by multiple companies due to the large cost of investment. There are three tiers which differentiates the size of the network held by a company.

Tier-1 :- This are the companies which have a global network connecting so much cables around the world that they don't need to pay anyone any fee to access any destination on the internet. They usually can access the network of other tier-1 companies without paying any fee. This network acts as the backbone of the internet.

Tier-2 :- These are companies which have a regional networks and are usually connected to one or more tier-1 networks. They have to pay a fee to access the tier-1 company's network.

Tier-3 :- These are the Internet Service Providers(ISPs) from whom we buy our broadband connections. They are the last tier, connecting the internet to the end users.

800px-Internet_Connectivity_Distribution_%26_Core.svg.png

Relationship between the various tiers on Internet providers

This may come as a surprise, but more than 24% of the internet's traffic goes through TATA's cables! TATA communications is one among the few global tier-1 Internet service providers in the world. Tier-1 means that they have enough cables to connect the world that they don't need to pay anyone any fee to access any destination on internet! They are the only tier-1 ISP from India and the owner and operator of the world's largest fibre network, 240000 km. long.

TATA provides internet to the tier-2 companies which sells internet to normal tier-3 internet service providers from whom we buy our broad band connections. Companies like BSNL, MTNL etc buy bandwidth from Tata.

They wholly own the low latency fiber optic cable which connects eight of the word's most important trading platforms : London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mumbai. This is the first time such a global network is being build exclusively for trading. It is the orange cable in the map below. You can see that it is laid in a snake like pattern over Russia. This is to increase the redundancy of the network, if one cable gets damaged at some point, then the network can still remain live through the other cable.

main-qimg-0339d1e56311363ae84692acfb432cc0

Tata Communications (It is an interactive map showing their and their partner's cables)

They have build a network of more than 500,000 KMs of submarine fibre optic cables and 210,000 KMs of terrestrial cables reaching more than 240 countries. Just for a reference, circumference of the equator of Earth is 40,075KM.

One out of every 10 international voice calls goes through their cables. 70% of the mobile carriers in the world are connected to their network.

Even today, less than 1% traffic(voice, internet, everything) goes through satellites, the remaining 99% still relies on the cable system. The internet which you use in your phone connects to the cell tower and then the cell tower is typically connected to an ISP through fiber optic cable under the tower.

Their cables in India

main-qimg-85f7d44f75c3d3b9d937a8c59ceb9aea

main-qimg-1a937312fa734ea8abcf888d213392c3

They have cable landing stations in Mumbai, Kochi and Chennai. These are the places at which the international underwater cables reaches India. These are high quality fiber optic cables capable of over 1TB per second.

Tata communications have so much bandwidth in their Indian landing stations that they have not even turned on some of their cables connecting India. Only about 60% of the cables are in use, the remaining cables are called 'dark fiber'. It is planned to be turned on in the future when demand for internet speed/bandwidth increases!

main-qimg-034bf90c6794b892661f52a916392a34

Their cable crosses Pakistan's land borders to reach Jammu.

Internet costs are generally higher in northern parts of India because they are far away from international landing stations. The latency while accessing international sites is also higher in northern parts of India due to the same reason. (high latency in simple words means slower response time in internet)

main-qimg-c47bb64ce29314e20b3393d2db9c0303


main-qimg-62c37ea90ccd3498226feefaa8c7f12c

Large ships specifically build for this purpose are used to lay the underwater cables. It is usually accompanied by an underwater rover which places the cable on the seabed. It can take years and 1000s of crores worth of investment to complete an international network. Such projects are usually undertaken together by multiple companies and governments.

Tata communications was originally started as VSNL by government of India and was acquired by Tata in 2002- a time when internet and telecommunication was starting to grow in India. They further acquired a Canadian network company Teleglobe in 2005 for $238 Million dollars.

main-qimg-3bf183f5fb85eae6b6526016e3c484ef

Since, currently most web-servers are located outside the physical boundaries of India, large international bandwidth is used by us to use internet. We should make an effort to make India an ideal location for companies to start their data centers. Currently, all major companies interested in south Asian market are establishing their data centers in Singapore.

Few years ago, the most valuable building of a city was the bank, but now the most valuable buildings are the data centers.

From the tiny electromagnetic coil of the first telephone in 1876 to the fibre-optic network that circles the globe today, technology has not only revolutionized the way we communicate – it has transformed our world and the way we live. The Internet, some say, is ubiquitous. Some call it a digital age. We call it the New World of Communications™.

Through our global network, the world’s largest, we’re proud to play a major role in the emergence of this new world. The Tata Communications Global Network reaches more than 240 countries and territories, 99.7% of the world’s GDP, millions of businesses, and billions of people. And it includes:

• One of the largest, most advanced subsea cable networks, 500,000 kilometres long

• A terrestrial fibre network stretching 210,000 kilometres

• A global Tier-1 IP network with more connections into more countries than any other carrier

• The world’s only fibre ring around the world

• The only Ethernet ring in the Middle East

• More than 1 million square feet of data centre space in 44 locations worldwide


Our network carries a huge volume of the world’s voice and internet traffic.

In voice, we are the world’s largest wholesale carrier. Our network handles 1 out of every 10 international calls and connects more than 70% of the world’s mobile carriers. On the Internet, we’re a major Tier-1 IP provider, consistently ranked in the top five telecommunications companies on five continents, by internet route. In fact, we handle more than 24% of the global internet traffic, totalling more than 7,300 petabytes a month.

Source(s) & Reference(s):- Tier 1 network
Tata Communications
At a Glance
Submarine Cable Networks
Tata Communications completes world's first wholly owned cable network ring around the world | Tata Communications
Tata Comm building world’s largest IoT network in India | Business Line
 
main-qimg-1a937312fa734ea8abcf888d213392c3

India is connected to the world at Mumbai, Cochin, Chennai and Tuticorine. All of our international internet traffic goes through these port cities. The place where the international cables connect to the land is called landing stations.

Tata Communications owns 3 landing stations at Mumbai, Chennai and Cochin. They are the only Tier-1 company from India.

Bharti Airtel owns 2 landings stations at Chennai and 1 at Mumbai.

Reliance Globalcom owns 1 landing station at Mumbai.

Sify Technologies owns 1 landing station at Mumbai

BSNL owns 1 landing station at Tuticorine connecting to Srilanka.

main-qimg-3b871ba6f9a154b5263306458604a317

On the eastern side, we are connected to Singapore from Chennai. On the western side we are connected through cables connecting UAE and Mumbai. And, on the southern side we are connected to the cables coming from south Africa.

Handing over of traffic from one network to another is called peering. There is a non profit government organization in India called National Internet Exchange of India(NIXI) which allows Indian ISPs to use each others network in an efficient manner rather than using foreign servers. This also increases the quality of service for the consumers and decreases the chances of data being snooped by foreign agencies such as NSA. NIXI created inRegistry in 2005 to start .in domain. (The website names with .in extension.)

Networks within India


There are several networks within India, one of them is RailTel- a government project started in 2000 to lay fiber optic cables along the routes of the railyway tracks. These cables are capable of bandwidth upto 400Gbps and have redundancy systems which re-routes the traffic incase of any malfunction at any point. They have a network of over 30,000KM.

main-qimg-77c52c733ef4febcdecb2066c68f9eb2

National Optical Fibre Network

This is a project started in 2011 to connect over 250,000 Grama Panchayaths via high speed fiber optic cable at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore. The plan was to use the existing optical fiber networks of RailTel, BSNL and powergrid to extend the network to more locations. The aim is to bring a minimum of 100Mbps connectivity to each Grama Panchayath. As of 2015, only 40% of the planned network has been completed, the biggest hurdle is stated as 'right of way problem' which in simple words means people are not allowing to lay cable over their land.

The NOFN makes use of indigenous technologies developed by C-DOT!

capture-png.183312

National Optical Fibre Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
TEMA Congratulates C-DOT for developing the Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) Technology
India`s National Optic Fibre Network To Connect 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats
Project-Technology:Bharat Broadband Network Limited, Government of India

New projects

A new cable landing station in Digha, West Bengal connecting south east Asia was approved for Rs 1600 crore in 2011.

A new connection is being established from Bangladesh to Agartala. This will give better connectivity to North eastern states. This project was signed during PM Modi's recent visit to Bangladesh.

Internet Disconnected.

Now, for the evil minds out there, it is possible to disconnect a country from internet by cutting these cables. In 2012, the only cable connecting Bangladesh to the international network was cut off and they lost their internet for nearly a month. Similar incidents have cut off internet to Myanmar multiple times.

In July 2005, a portion of the SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine cable located 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Karachi that provided Pakistan's major outer communications became defective, disrupting almost all of Pakistan's communications with the rest of the world, and affecting approximately 10 million Internet users.

In March 2007, pirates stole an 11-kilometre (7 mi) section of the T-V-H submarine cable that connected Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, afflicting Vietnam's Internet users with far slower speeds. The thieves attempted to sell the 100 tons of cable as scrap.
 
India has made a bid to be a major player in global Internet governance — by making a pitch with the US to locate a 'root server' in India. There are only 13 such servers, of which 10 are in the US, two in Europe and one in Japan. The US, Indian officials told ET on the condition of anonymity, is favourably disposed to the idea. A root name server, as it's technically known, is at the base of the Internet. These servers translate readable host names into IP addresses, which is how a user gets to the right portal link.

In short, root name servers are essential to name resolution, which is at the core of managing the Internet.

These root servers also have mirror servers — six are in India — that are networked to share the load. Any change in Internet addresses gets simultaneously updated in a root server. And a change in any one server automatically reflects in other root servers.

48780277.cms

Internet governance: US considering India's pitch to locate 'root server' - timesofindia-economictimes
 
More than 99% of the internet traffic relies on high quality fiber optic cables connecting various countries. Only a minuscule part of the traffic goes through satellites.

These cable networks are laid and maintained by various governments and giant companies. Such projects are usually undertaken by multiple companies due to the large cost of investment. There are three tiers which differentiates the size of the network held by a company.

Tier-1 :- This are the companies which have a global network connecting so much cables around the world that they don't need to pay anyone any fee to access any destination on the internet. They usually can access the network of other tier-1 companies without paying any fee. This network acts as the backbone of the internet.

Tier-2 :- These are companies which have a regional networks and are usually connected to one or more tier-1 networks. They have to pay a fee to access the tier-1 company's network.

Tier-3 :- These are the Internet Service Providers(ISPs) from whom we buy our broadband connections. They are the last tier, connecting the internet to the end users.

800px-Internet_Connectivity_Distribution_%26_Core.svg.png

Relationship between the various tiers on Internet providers

This may come as a surprise, but more than 24% of the internet's traffic goes through TATA's cables! TATA communications is one among the few global tier-1 Internet service providers in the world. Tier-1 means that they have enough cables to connect the world that they don't need to pay anyone any fee to access any destination on internet! They are the only tier-1 ISP from India and the owner and operator of the world's largest fibre network, 240000 km. long.

TATA provides internet to the tier-2 companies which sells internet to normal tier-3 internet service providers from whom we buy our broad band connections. Companies like BSNL, MTNL etc buy bandwidth from Tata.

They wholly own the low latency fiber optic cable which connects eight of the word's most important trading platforms : London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mumbai. This is the first time such a global network is being build exclusively for trading. It is the orange cable in the map below. You can see that it is laid in a snake like pattern over Russia. This is to increase the redundancy of the network, if one cable gets damaged at some point, then the network can still remain live through the other cable.

main-qimg-0339d1e56311363ae84692acfb432cc0

Tata Communications (It is an interactive map showing their and their partner's cables)

They have build a network of more than 500,000 KMs of submarine fibre optic cables and 210,000 KMs of terrestrial cables reaching more than 240 countries. Just for a reference, circumference of the equator of Earth is 40,075KM.

One out of every 10 international voice calls goes through their cables. 70% of the mobile carriers in the world are connected to their network.

Even today, less than 1% traffic(voice, internet, everything) goes through satellites, the remaining 99% still relies on the cable system. The internet which you use in your phone connects to the cell tower and then the cell tower is typically connected to an ISP through fiber optic cable under the tower.

Their cables in India

main-qimg-85f7d44f75c3d3b9d937a8c59ceb9aea

main-qimg-1a937312fa734ea8abcf888d213392c3

They have cable landing stations in Mumbai, Kochi and Chennai. These are the places at which the international underwater cables reaches India. These are high quality fiber optic cables capable of over 1TB per second.

Tata communications have so much bandwidth in their Indian landing stations that they have not even turned on some of their cables connecting India. Only about 60% of the cables are in use, the remaining cables are called 'dark fiber'. It is planned to be turned on in the future when demand for internet speed/bandwidth increases!

main-qimg-034bf90c6794b892661f52a916392a34

Their cable crosses Pakistan's land borders to reach Jammu.

Internet costs are generally higher in northern parts of India because they are far away from international landing stations. The latency while accessing international sites is also higher in northern parts of India due to the same reason. (high latency in simple words means slower response time in internet)

main-qimg-c47bb64ce29314e20b3393d2db9c0303


main-qimg-62c37ea90ccd3498226feefaa8c7f12c

Large ships specifically build for this purpose are used to lay the underwater cables. It is usually accompanied by an underwater rover which places the cable on the seabed. It can take years and 1000s of crores worth of investment to complete an international network. Such projects are usually undertaken together by multiple companies and governments.

Tata communications was originally started as VSNL by government of India and was acquired by Tata in 2002- a time when internet and telecommunication was starting to grow in India. They further acquired a Canadian network company Teleglobe in 2005 for $238 Million dollars.

main-qimg-3bf183f5fb85eae6b6526016e3c484ef

Since, currently most web-servers are located outside the physical boundaries of India, large international bandwidth is used by us to use internet. We should make an effort to make India an ideal location for companies to start their data centers. Currently, all major companies interested in south Asian market are establishing their data centers in Singapore.

Few years ago, the most valuable building of a city was the bank, but now the most valuable buildings are the data centers.

From the tiny electromagnetic coil of the first telephone in 1876 to the fibre-optic network that circles the globe today, technology has not only revolutionized the way we communicate – it has transformed our world and the way we live. The Internet, some say, is ubiquitous. Some call it a digital age. We call it the New World of Communications™.

Through our global network, the world’s largest, we’re proud to play a major role in the emergence of this new world. The Tata Communications Global Network reaches more than 240 countries and territories, 99.7% of the world’s GDP, millions of businesses, and billions of people. And it includes:

• One of the largest, most advanced subsea cable networks, 500,000 kilometres long

• A terrestrial fibre network stretching 210,000 kilometres

• A global Tier-1 IP network with more connections into more countries than any other carrier

• The world’s only fibre ring around the world

• The only Ethernet ring in the Middle East

• More than 1 million square feet of data centre space in 44 locations worldwide


Our network carries a huge volume of the world’s voice and internet traffic.

In voice, we are the world’s largest wholesale carrier. Our network handles 1 out of every 10 international calls and connects more than 70% of the world’s mobile carriers. On the Internet, we’re a major Tier-1 IP provider, consistently ranked in the top five telecommunications companies on five continents, by internet route. In fact, we handle more than 24% of the global internet traffic, totalling more than 7,300 petabytes a month.

Source(s) & Reference(s):- Tier 1 network
Tata Communications
At a Glance
Submarine Cable Networks
Tata Communications completes world's first wholly owned cable network ring around the world | Tata Communications
Tata Comm building world’s largest IoT network in India | Business Line




Where are your citations??

This is a complete copy from a Quora answer.

What are some mind blowing facts about TATA? - Quora
 
Where are your citations??

This is a complete copy from a Quora answer.

What are some mind blowing facts about TATA? - Quora


I also have some query on the numbers. Let's take a look from optical fiber preform market.

Global optical fiber preform market capacity amounted to 13,000 tons in 2014, mainly concentrated in the China, United States and Japan (totaling as much as 85.2% of the world's total), of which China ranked first with a share of 39.8%.

Global optical fiber preform market is highly concentrated, with top 5 companies (one in China, two in the United States, and two in Japan) together making up 59.4% of market share in 2014, of which Chinese Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Co., Ltd. (YOFC) taking the first place with a share of 13.3%, followed by U.S. Corning Inc. (12.9%). Order a copy of this optical fiber preform market 2015 research report at Purchase:
Global and China Optical Fiber Preform Industry Report, 2014-2017
.

Besides a big producer of optical fiber preform, China is also a large consumer, demanding 6,639 tons in 2014, 60.9% of global demand. The figure is expected to increase to 7,144 tons in 2015.

New Report on Global and China Optical Fiber Preform Market
Global and China Optical Fiber Perform Industry Report, 2014-2017 -- LONDON, Nov. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Optical Fiber Preform Market: China to Consume 50%+ (7144 Tons) of Global Capacity in 2015 - Yahoo Finance

 
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24% of share is a blo0dy hell of the share. TATA does all this silently. We should include this in 10 thing you do know about India etc.

TATA aerospace is one more similar giant. It is very difficult to imagine where they will reach in next 10 years.
 
I also have some query on the numbers. Let's take a look from optical fiber preform market.

Global optical fiber preform market capacity amounted to 13,000 tons in 2014, mainly concentrated in the China, United States and Japan (totaling as much as 85.2% of the world's total), of which China ranked first with a share of 39.8%.

Global optical fiber preform market is highly concentrated, with top 5 companies (one in China, two in the United States, and two in Japan) together making up 59.4% of market share in 2014, of which Chinese Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Co., Ltd. (YOFC) taking the first place with a share of 13.3%, followed by U.S. Corning Inc. (12.9%). Order a copy of this optical fiber preform market 2015 research report at Purchase:
Global and China Optical Fiber Preform Industry Report, 2014-2017
.

Besides a big producer of optical fiber preform, China is also a large consumer, demanding 6,639 tons in 2014, 60.9% of global demand. The figure is expected to increase to 7,144 tons in 2015.

New Report on Global and China Optical Fiber Preform Market
Global and China Optical Fiber Perform Industry Report, 2014-2017 -- LONDON, Nov. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Optical Fiber Preform Market: China to Consume 50%+ (7144 Tons) of Global Capacity in 2015 - Yahoo Finance


We are not talking here about optical fiber manufacturing, technology, or even laying.

What we are talking here is simply, cable ownership, something akin to telecom vendors.

For example, officially telecom service providers in India are companies like Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL. But none of these have anything to do with technology. All the telecom technology is ultiamately bought from the big telecom technology companies like Ericsson, Huawei, etc.
 
A small article from 2012 when the first announcement was made

Tata claims first 'round the world' fibre-optic cable
Indian telecoms giant Tata Communications says completion of Egyptian link makes it the first company to own a fibre-optic cable that spans the globe

Excerpts
  • Indian telecommunications giant Tata Communications claims to be the first company to have built a "cable network ring around the world", connecting Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East.
  • Tata announced today that it has completed construction of a cable that crosses Egypt, as part of its Tata Global Network – Eurasia (TGN-EA) link. This means that the company now owns a continuous fibre optic route around the planet, it said.
  • "This a landmark moment for Tata Communications as we officially launch the world's first wholly-owned global submarine cable network as a complete and robust ring around the world," said CEO and managing director Vinod Kumar.
  • "Our customers, whether a European auto-manufacturer, an Asian hotel group or a large U.S. financial services firm, need to compete in global markets and are demanding faster and more reliable worldwide connectivity," he said.
  • Last year, Hibernian Atlantic, a company that operates one of the transatlantic undersea network cables, announced plans to construct a new, 100Gbps link between Southport, UK and Nova Scotia, Canada. The Hibernian Express cable, due to be built by Chinese giant Huawei, promises to shave miliseconds off financial trades between London and New York.
Tata claims first 'round the world' fibre-optic cable | Information Age
 
Some interesting snaps taken from
Submarine Cable Map

Keyword searched is "Tata", "India" and "Pakistan"
The details emerging are taken as SS for the pictures below
1. TATA
TATA TGN Atlantic.jpg

Tata TGN Gulf.jpg

TATA TGN INTRA ASIA.jpg

TATA TGN PACIFIC.jpg

TATA TGN TATA INDICOM.jpg

TATA TGN WESTERN EUROPE.jpg


2. INDIA

Connected to India.jpg


3. Pakistan
Pakistan.jpg


Sorry for zoom outs as pics are too big to ft into a SS.


The right side each depicts the names of the cables for India and Pakistan and connecting landing points for TATA

@Vauban @Abingdonboy @Aminroop @Spectre @nair @AUSTERLITZ @Capt.Popeye @ranjeet @knight11 :
Excellent post by @Chanakya's_Chant .. very informative..
 
We are not talking here about optical fiber manufacturing, technology, or even laying.

What we are talking here is simply, cable ownership, something akin to telecom vendors.

For example, officially telecom service providers in India are companies like Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL. But none of these have anything to do with technology. All the telecom technology is ultiamately bought from the big telecom technology companies like Ericsson, Huawei, etc.


That's a way to assess the network size from upstream, telcos purchase the fiber optics and use that as network to provide traffic. Given the relatively small total national market of fiber optics (China alone was 60.9% of global demand, followed by US, Japan), even assuming Tata is the largest fish in the pond and dominates all still the network size is only limited.

I have no doubt on Tata's domestic position as tier-one ISP but query is on horizontal comparison with telcos in other countries, especially countries consuming large amount of fiber optics, with big FTTH scale, etc. How does Tata compare with say China Telecom, AT&T, NTT Docomo, SK Telecom, Vodafone or other large telcos?
 
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