India's internet growth faces vulnerability as most international cables land near Mumbai, risking nationwide outages
Executive summary: At least 13 of India's 18 intercontinental submarine cables land within six kilometres of Mumbai's Versova beach, according to a BBC report. Such concentration creates a single point of failure for the country's international internet links, raising the risk of widespread outages from natural accidents or sabotage.
Who is involved: Indian telecom operators, cable landing station owners, the Department of Telecommunications, and international cable consortiums.
Likely next: Authorities may evaluate the need for geographic diversification of cable landings and consider incentives for redundant routing; telecom firms could push for additional landing sites or alternative routes.
At least 13 of India's 18 intercontinental submarine cables come ashore within six kilometres of Mumbai's Versova beach, concentrating the country's global bandwidth in a small coastal zone. This geographic clustering heightens the risk that a single incident — such as an anchor strike, landslide, or deliberate damage — could disrupt multiple cables simultaneously, threatening national connectivity. Experts warn that without diversified landing points, India's expanding digital economy and reliance on cloud services could suffer costly outages.
Timeline
- — Is India's internet boom running into an undersea problem? (BBC Business)
Analysis — what this means
Sectors affected
- Telecommunications
- Cloud computing
- Digital services
- Data center operators
Historical parallels
- 2006 Hengchun earthquakes severed Taiwan's undersea cables, causing regional internet slowdown
Key entities
Sources
- Is India's internet boom running into an undersea problem? — BBC Business