The company is in the final stages of surveying the seabed for identifying the most benign route for laying the cable. TL Geohydrographics, a Malaysian company, has been given the contract for the survey. It has already completed the deep water study. The shallow water survey is expected to be through in another few weeks. The laying of cables is expected to start after that and is expected to be complete in about two months. In India, the landing point for the optic fibre cable will be in Chennai. In the meantime, Dishnet has tied-up with TyCom for inter-connecting its SEACN system with TyCom's Transpacific ring which will allow seamless flow of traffic between Chennai and the US. TyCom is a $2.54 billion company in the process of setting up an extensive undersea optic fibre cable network in the world.

Its Transpacific ring connecting Guam, Japan to the West Coast of the US through Hawaii will commence operations by mid-2002. It is also planning a transatlantic ring, one for Northern Europe, Pan Asia, Transamerica and the Mediterranean. Tycom has been given the turnkey contract for laying and maintaining the cables.

The tie-up with Tycom will enable Dishnet to provide broadband connectivity for all major countries in the world, Dishnet DSL vice-president (business development) Aravinthan G, said while speaking to reporters on board the survey vessel `Teknik Perdana'. Almost 80 per cent of the traffic from Chennai is to the US, especially to the West Coast.

Dishnet DSL, Mr Aravinthan said, has already begun pre-selling bandwidth and ISPs, software houses will be the major customers apart from Dishnet itself which is a leading ISP in India. Company officials expect the broadband rates to fall sharply once the submarine cable projects (including that of Bharati's) are up and running. Dishnet DSL, they said, would repeat what it did in the cellular phone front through their sister concern Aircell. The cellular company had made the billing of all calls within Tamil Nadu (barring Chennai) on par with local calls. This fuelled a massive penetration in cell phone usage.

On the need to put up a broadband network with a capacity of 7.68 tbps when the country is currently using only a fraction of it, Mr Aravinthan said that supply would create the necessary demand.