Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Communications on Thursday announced an ambitious Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion) project to lay a 1.15 lakh km-long under-sea cable covering 60 countries for providing bandwidth.
The three-year project, named Flag Next Generation Network, will be completed by December 2009 and would be the world's largest Internet Protocol network over submarine cable systems, RCom chief Anil Ambani said in Mumbai.
"Over the next 36 months, Flag will build the world's largest IP network and would cater to over five billion customers across the globe. Being a global connectivity provider, Flag will become an integrated application and content provider," he said.
The project would be financed through internal accruals and debt, if necessary, he said, adding the company has already secured assurance from various financial institutions.
Stating that the availability of abundant bandwidth would result in a major reduction in prices, Ambani said Flag NGN would enable customers to receive services at 'strikingly affordable prices'.
The Flag NGN would comprise four cable systems, connecting Asia, Africa, Mediterranean and Trans-Pacific. On completion of Flag Global Network, Reliance will have over 2.3 lakh km long optic fibre network.