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SCMP Reporter

Flag Telecom will link the Middle East, China and India

With Hong Kong as a key connection, Flag Telecom has positioned its new high-capacity submarine cable system to draw and convey more trade between the Middle East, China and India.

The 15,000km, multi-terabit Falcon cable system is slated for service next February but has already received interest from many of the telecommunications operators serving the business centres along its route.

'This reflects the next stage of Flag Telecom's evolution and puts a focus on what will drive our operations forward,' said Flag Telecom chief executive Patrick Gallagher.

London-based Flag Telecom, an international cable network operator that supplies bandwidth to fixed-line carriers and internet services providers, was acquired last year by Indian firm Reliance Gateway. It is part of the Reliance Group, India's largest business conglomerate.

Mr Gallagher said Falcon was designed and being built to offer  high-bandwidth, resilient connections required by advanced communications services and critical business applications used by Asia's fast-growing economies.

'Anything that the global digital economy can do, Falcon can handle. Nobody is providing this kind of link and strategic support for e-commerce to expand between the Middle East, China and India,' he said.

'We have recognised for some time that the exploding market demand from major growth economies could not be served by the bandwidth connectivity serving the Middle East and Asia today.'

The Falcon project was announced last month after months of development work. All initial engineering activities have been completed and preparations are under way for the marine survey.

Mr Gallagher said final negotiations with a shortlist of suppliers were on track. He expected Falcon to cost much less than Flag Telecom's previous submarine cable  projects. He rejected a recent report that put its spending for Falcon at more than US$300 million.

Flag Telecom, the Reliance Group and participating telecoms operators are funding Falcon's development.

'We are also debt-free, which allows us to push ahead with this initiative,' Mr Gallagher said.

Flag Telecom, which had been hit hard by the global telecoms industry slump, filed for bankruptcy in 2002. The Reliance merger helped the company pay off the last of its debts in January.

Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Qatar and Iraq will have the potential to directly access Falcon. Mr Gallagher said all of these countries had expressed interest in joining Falcon and most were in advanced discussions with Flag Telecom regarding their participation.

The western link of Falcon will land at Telecom Egypt's landing station at Suez, where the cable system will integrate with Flag Telecoms global network. Falcon will then follow a route through the Red Sea, along the East African coast and across the top part of the Arabian Sea, before landing in Oman.

Travelling from Oman along its easterly link, Falcon will cross the Arabian Sea to a new Reliance-owned landing station at Mumbai. At this point, Falcon will interconnect with the Reliance Group's 80,000km high-speed backbone network linking about 1,100 cities and towns across the length and breadth of India.

At Chennai, on the east coast of India where a second Reliance landing station is being built, Falcon will again become a submarine system that links to Hong Kong. An existing landing station in Lantau will integrate Falcon with the mainland and other points under Flag Telecom's global network.

Mr Gallagher said branching units could be added along the entire Falcon cable route to allow more countries in the Middle East and the rest of Asia to connect to the system as their communications needs continue to expand.



Cable system will boost three-way digital trade