Government signs submarine cable agreement with Reliance Jio

Government-owned Ocean Connect Maldives on Monday signed an agreement with Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) to establish the ‘Maldives IAZ Subsea Cable System’.

During a ceremony held at Crossroads Maldives, the Chairperson of Ocean Connect Maldives Riyaz Mansoor and President of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited Mathew Oommen signed the documents on behalf of their respective companies.

Minister of Economic Development Fayyaz Ismail, who presided over the ceremony said that the hope is to be able to sell the internet to other countries.

“Once the cable is laid, any ISP can buy cheap and fast internet from us.”

Additionally, he noted that this project was not to contest with the private internet providers in the country. He added that laying a cable and maintaining it was a big cost, and hence with the project, ISPs would get some ease.

Moreover, stating that the tech industry was up and coming in Maldives, that there are many successful companies currently, and that this grants a golden opportunity to establish even more such companies.

“We believe that with the cable being built by the government, it would colour the dreams of many talented youths.”

Speaking at the ceremony, Oommen noted that the company boasts a large customer base, and connecting this cable to Maldives, will ease the difficulties and service interruptions due to cable damages.

The cable connecting to Maldives is the Reliance company’s India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) that will connect Mumbai and Chennai to Singapore.

The company is also building another cable, India-Europe-Express (IEX), that would connect Mumbai to Europe.

According to the Economic Times of India, these cables will provide “direct connectivity to the top content hubs worldwide, and the deployment is set to boost India’s data availability.”

Both cables with over 100Tbps capacity and transmission speeds of over 100gbps, are expected to be completed and operational by 2023

Reliance Industries is an Indian multinational conglomerate company owned by Indian billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani.