India 4th largest market for optic-fibre cable

India has become the world's fourth largest market for optic-fibre cable after Japan, the US, and China following adoption of new telecom policy, a new study has said.

At the end of 1995, India had cumulatively installed 283,600 km of fibre, the study said, adding that the figure had gone up to 2.5 million km in 2000, following the new telecom policy of 1999.

By last year, the installations had more than doubled to 6.7 million fiber-km, the study by KMI Research said.

Though the demand for optic-fibre cable will start declining this year, it is expected to remain strong till at least 2007, the study said. But India is not immune to the global boom and bust cycle in optical networks, it added.

As a result of the completion of major long-haul network builds, KMI projects that annual fibre deployment in India will start to decline in 2003.

It predicts that a compound annual decline of 15 per cent in optic-fibre cable deployment from 2003 to 2007, when cumulative deployment will reach 14.6 million fiber-km.

Nevertheless, India will remain a strong component of global demand for fibre throughout the forecast period.

The demand for optical fiber cable has increased dramatically over the last two years. While demand began decreasing in North America and Europe in late 2000, India was experiencing a boom, the study said.

Deployments for metro/access applications will grow sharply as India tries to achieve aggressive targets for increasing tele-density to average global levels, it said.