High global bandwidth demand has spurred terrestrial and submarine cable network operators to double the amount of capacity deployed on international Internet, private and switched voice networks. “Demand for international bandwidth between Europe and Asia is expected to increase nearly 9-fold between 2017 and 2023 and bandwidth linking Europe to the Middle East is forecasted to increase 7-fold during the same period,” said Alan Mauldin, Research Director, TeleGeography.
The continuous increase in bandwidth demands stem from companies including Facebook, Google, Amazon and other major content providers in this always-online world. In addition, there is demand from the vast number of connected people who regularly consume online content. Market research firm Statista has forecast the number of smartphone users worldwide to reach 2.9 billion by 2020, up from 2.3 billion in 2017.
In Asia, international bandwidth usage has grown north of 60 percent between 2017 and 2018 as content and Cloud services providers, as well as the companies that host their digital resources, have driven up demand.
Asia has vast amounts of data to send and receive from North America and Europe. Such connections are vital to the Internet backbone operators who help connect the countless emails and phone calls people and businesses make each second, as well as the content providers that operate huge data centers where their digital resources are managed and hosted.
It said the region derives most of its international bandwidth through fiber optic submarine cable systems. These systems are widely expected to become more important over time as intra-Asian connectivity, as well as links to Europe and North America, help power the development goals of regional economic powerhouses like China, India and Japan.
Bill Barney, the Chief Executive Officer of RCOM and Global Cloud Xchange, says the increased capacity from new submarine cable systems would not only help meet the bandwidth requirements of the large Cloud and content providers, but also the numerous large and small companies that drive the world’s collective economy.
With an eye to meet the global market’s need, RCOM subsidiary Global Cloud Xchange (GCX) has announced the construction of its Eagle express cable system. This new 16,650-kilometer submarine cable network is expected to deliver the fastest telecommunications routes from Mumbai going east to Hong Kong and west to Italy.
Barney has dubbed this project as the “Cloud & Fiber Initiative” of GCX, which owns and operates the world’s largest private submarine cable system that spans more than 67,000 kilometers.