Submarine Cables

A Strategic Imperative for CSP Resilience

As India advances toward its ambition of becoming a fully developed, self reliant economy by 2047, digital infrastructure will play a defining role in enabling growth, inclusion, and innovation. At the core of this infrastructure lies a critical but often underappreciated asset: submarine cable networks.

For communication service providers (CSPs), submarine cables are no longer passive connectivity enablers. They are strategic assets that underpin cloud adoption, AI driven workloads, hyperscale connectivity, and cross border digital services. The robustness and resilience of this infrastructure will increasingly determine a CSP’s ability to scale, compete, and deliver predictable service outcomes.

Why submarine cables are fundamentally different from other network assets

Submarine cable systems are unique in both scale and longevity. Designed for operational lifecycles of 25 years or more, these assets impose long term technical, commercial, and operational commitments that extend well beyond typical terrestrial network planning horizons.
Unlike terrestrial infrastructure, subsea networks traverse multiple territorial waters, exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and international jurisdictions. As a result, CSPs must navigate complex and evolving regulatory environments, geopolitical considerations, and cross border dependencies, often along a single cable route.

Compounding this complexity is a highly specialized and concentrated vendor ecosystem. Limited supplier diversity, proprietary technologies, and constrained repair resources create long term dependency risks. For CSPs, these factors translate into reduced flexibility during planning and implementation, longer recovery times during faults, and increased exposure to vendor driven cost structures.

Commercial models further add to the challenge. Consortium, private, and hybrid ownership structures each introduce different governance dynamics, decision rights, and operational trade offs. Over a multi decade lifecycle, these structures can significantly influence a CSP’s ability to respond to market demand, technology evolution, and unexpected disruptions.

Building robustness and resilience into subsea networks

For CSPs, resilience in submarine networks is not achieved through capacity expansion alone. It requires a coordinated focus across four critical dimensions: capacity planning, network diversity, protection and repair readiness, and lifecycle operations.

1. Capacity planning for an AI driven digital economy
   India’s current subsea footprint remains limited relative to the scale and trajectory of its digital economy. Several existing cable systems are approaching the later stages of their design life, even as demand accelerates, driven by cloud adoption, hyperscale data centre growth, and AI workloads that are more latency sensitive and bandwidth intensive.

   For CSPs, this calls for a shift in planning mindset. Subsea capacity should be treated as a long term strategic roadmap rather than a one time investment. Decisions taken today (on wet plant design, cable routes, and landing locations) will directly influence service agility and cost competitiveness for decades. Regulatory frameworks that support timely investment and future scalability will be critical to sustaining this growth.

2. Network diversity as a resilience lever
   Despite India’s extensive coastline, submarine cable landings remain heavily concentrated in a small number of locations, notably Mumbai and Chennai. This concentration creates systemic risk, exposing CSPs to correlated failures arising from natural events, operational incidents, or localized geopolitical disruptions.

   Effective diversity goes beyond adding incremental capacity. It requires deliberate design choices across three dimensions: geographically diverse landing stations, physically diverse marine routes, and diversified terminal countries. Global choke points, such as the Singapore Strait, the Red Sea, and Egypt’s terrestrial corridors, highlight the importance of alternative routing strategies to mitigate shared-risk exposure.
   For CSPs, diversity is not an abstract architectural principle; it is a measurable contributor to service continuity, restoration speed, and enterprise customer confidence.

3. Protection and repair: reducing time-to-recovery
   Submarine cable faults, while relatively infrequent, can have disproportionate impact. Repair cycles can extend for weeks or months, with costs running into millions and broader consequences for national digital ecosystems. A significant proportion of faults result from human activity (anchoring, fishing, and dredging) making them largely preventable through effective protection mechanisms and regulatory enforcement.

   However, technical readiness alone is insufficient. In many cases, delays in permitting and cross jurisdictional approvals become the primary drivers of extended outages. For CSPs, this elevates repair readiness from an operational issue to a governance challenge. Proactive engagement with regulators, predefined permitting frameworks, and clear restoration playbooks can materially reduce mean time to repair.

4. Lifecycle operations and capability development
   Given their criticality and longevity, submarine cable systems demand disciplined lifecycle operations. This includes robust monitoring, spares strategy, vendor performance management, and clearly defined change and upgrade governance over decades.

   Vendor concentration and proprietary technologies further amplify long term risk. Developing indigenous capabilities across technology, operations, and skills can help CSPs reduce dependency, improve response times, and retain greater control over their subsea assets. Human capital development will be essential as new systems are deployed and existing networks age.

Strategic actions for CSP leaders

For CSPs managing (or planning to invest in) submarine cable systems, several actions can materially improve long term outcomes:

• Assess concentration risk across landing stations, routes, and jurisdictions
• Institutionalize restoration readiness through predefined permits, maintenance agreements, and escalation mechanisms
• Establish a 25 year operating model that integrates monitoring, benchmarking, and continuous optimization
• Build indigenous capabilities to derisk from external uncertainties

Taken together, these actions shift subsea networks from static infrastructure to actively managed strategic platforms.

Conclusion

Submarine cables are among the most critical components of a CSP’s network portfolio. Their long lifecycles, geopolitical exposure, and operational complexity demand a strategic approach that balances capacity growth with resilience, governance, and capability development.

For CSPs, the question is no longer whether to invest in subsea infrastructure, but how to design, operate, and govern it in a way that delivers sustained value over the next 25 years.

TCTS: Supporting CSPs across the subsea lifecycle

Tata Communications Transformation Services (TCTS) supports subsea network operators in planning, operating, and optimizing submarine cable systems across their full lifecycle. With vendor agnostic, automation driven solutions spanning subsea consulting, managed operations, and project management, TCTS helps CSPs improve transparency, manage risk, and align subsea investments with long term business objectives.