Indian mega-carrier Jio to build pair of 200-terabit submarine cables

Indian telecoms conglomerate Reliance Jio has announced it will build two submarine cables to help it satisfy India’s appetite for data. One of the cables is called IEX, short for India-Europe-Express, and will head west from Mumbai and connect to the Middle East and North Africa before ending in Italy. Connecting points …

[Flywheel]

Priorities

How about paying for Indian citizens to get proper medical facilities first? No? I guess that'll have to get in the queue behind the Space Program and Modi's vanity Parliament building.

[sreynolds]

Re: Priorities

So are you saying a telco will be a good health provider? Why not not have equitable distribution of wealth via progressive rather than regressive taxation? Why are investments usually taxed at half the rate of people's income? How does this help the economy is beyond belief.

[Flywheel]

Re: Priorities

I'm guessing that there will be (Indian) Government involvement in this project at some stage, so I thought that rather than throw Government taxpayers money at projects such has this, why not get the Indian Health Service in order first?

Sure, it'll be nice to have fast broadband and have an Indian presence on the Moon, but if your population is dying in the most horrible and cruel way then it's rather cynical, surely?

And it's also highly ironic that with all that apparently endless wealth, we're now seeing charity ads on TV asking us to cough up a tenner for poor, covid-riddled India!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Priorities

The population is dying in the most horrible and cruel way because India has an idiot for a Prime Minister. From the very, very beginning of this pandemic epidemiologists made it abundantly clear that the death toll would be disastrous if hospitals were allowed to become overwhelmed.

Modi allowed mass gatherings to resume and that combined with a more transmissible variant has overwhelmed the hospitals in some areas. Now that they are overwhelmed, no amount of money can fix the problem because there is no time left to do anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Priorities

> because India has an idiot for a Prime Minister.

Good job we didn't have anyone like that

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Priorities

You are guessing there will be govt involvement or you see the future? Do you have any basis for this or you just want to go on your rant?? First its a private company investment and most important - investment in infrasturcture is always a good thing. Buy hey who needs a logic when you just want to go on a rant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Priorities

If Americans can combine having a space program and shanty towns, why wouldn't the Indians?

[Ken G]

Re: Priorities

I know it's a cheap and easy shot but think about it for a while. If the Indian government spent exactly as much as Jio is spending on the network, would it actually speed up coronavirus care in the short term? In the longer term having better access to European markets should increase opportunities and tax revenue from the business and workers involved. Also India is big, really big, so it's kind of like saying RIM shouldn't build a data centre in Canada until drug violence in Mexico ends. The current Indian government are certainly less than the country deserves but it's also not a matter of stopping infrastructure investment and spending on healthcare instead.

[JWLong]

Cable for Scams

They need more bandwidth to disinfect our devices for us.

[BillGatesOfHell]

live by the sword

Reliance also have a large finger in the pie of the offshore oil/gas industry off the East coast of India. Currently they are conducting subsea projects with McDermott and other greedy western oilfield service companys and people are literally dying of COVID on vessels. Rather than suspend/postpone these projects, they are pushing to complete them and carrying on regardless and refusing requests for people to return home. Collegues I know are on these projects and are subject to the usual NDA stuff so you won't hear anything about it for a long while. These companies don't give a F**K about them now but when they need the skilled personel to lay these new cables they are building, they are just going to have to get it done with locals that only know how to BS on a CV.