I’m looking at a single yellow ethernet cable plugged into the LAN port of a server, when someone whispers into my right ear, "If you unplug that cable, India's connection to the global Internet will take a significant hit.”

My hand starts moving towards the cable...

INSIDE THE TEMPLE OF DATA

In an unsuspecting corner of Mumbai's business hub stands an unremarkable building. But the sheer enormity of the task carried out inside is nothing short of incredible.

This is where India’s connection to the global Internet is established at a minimum speed of 3.6 Tbps and a 20% headroom of about 720 Gbps is always maintained to ensure smooth Internet traffic flow in and out of the country.

Before you stand outside Tata Communications' BKC submarine cable landing station, in Building B, you have to go through three levels of security clearance. The control room, where all the cable monitoring takes place, is so secure that only people sitting inside it are allowed to open its doors -- not kidding, I actually saw one VP level Tata Communications executive try and fail to open the doors with his all-access ID card. Speaks volume of how paranoid the security levels are on the premises, as only a handful of authorised personnel are allowed access to the highly-sensitive control room. And yes, no shoes allowed inside. As I cross over the threshold, I feel I'm entering the sanctum sanctorum of this temple of data, where the high priests spend their lives worshipping 0s and 1s.

The control room is large and divided into two sections. Tata Communications' own monitoring station, which is about 100 ft by 100 ft plus one other room which we'll get to in a bit. This is where the undersea submarine cable which extends for up to 12,000 km westward is hoisted up from the murky ocean depths onto terra firma. One fat pipe, as thick as a water tanker hose (if ever you've seen one), carrying three close-knit fibre optic cables that are hardly thicker than a hair's breadth -- that's what all the fuss is about. This is what connects India to the global Internet, and yes it's not the only gateway (there are backups and alternatives, obviously), but for the people working in this facility, it is the centre of their universe.

ALL STATIONS GO

As I look at a massive wall chart of various undersea cables snaking their way across the Indian subcontinent, I reflect upon just how bonkers this cable grid is and how much depends on its efficient working -- everything from silly cat videos, Facebook messages to global stock trading, online banking, and more! And Tata Communications is the only Tier-1 global telecommunications company in India, which maintains undersea Internet cables that come from Western Europe & Middle East to Mumbai, South Africa to Cochin and Chennai to Singapore, responsible for the majority of India’s global Internet traffic. Every other telco (Vodafone, Airtel, BSNL, etc) and ISP (Hathway, DVois SSV, etc) in India hitches their global Internet ride on Tata Communications’ infrastructure backbone.

The undersea submarine internet cable being towed out into the Arabian Sea

”In fact, 25% of the global Internet traffic flows through our undersea cable network backbone. And we connect 80% of global mobile subscribers, too. Think about it the next time you’re accessing the Internet" - VS Shridhar, Senior Vice President and Head – Internet of Things, Tata Communications

Tata Communications’ BKC cable landing station handles approximately 10% of Tata Communications' Indian bandwidth capacity. This facility relays traffic via consortium cable (I – ME – WE ) from and into India and is equipped to deal with multiple terabits of data. Most of the major cities across India are 100 Gbps enabled with built-in redundancy to ensure the Internet traffic flowing in and out of India isn’t bumpy.

RESISTING THE URGE TO PULL ‘THE’ CABLE

The control room’s monitoring station is manned by just five technicians looking at different screens. One of the screens constantly reports the electrical health of the submarine cable in real-time, at various points across its length, as it’s essential to keep the fibre optic cable inside it connected to a power source which is capable of maintaining ideal DC voltage and amperage across tens of thousands of kilometres of the cable. Another screen throws up live data throughput stats, projecting how much data is coming into India and how much data is passing out of the country at any given second.

The room is sparse with a constant server hum for background score, and racks of servers with green and yellow blinking lights indicating constant network activity on the periphery. I’m asked if I’d like to take a look at that one ethernet cable which essentially connects India to the rest of the world’s Internet. I nod my head. We approach a shielded server rack protected by a large aluminium door, and the door has a big red button labelled ‘Emergency’.

The very top compartment of the server rack has a small flap, not unlike a bank locker. A supervisor inserts a traditional key inside the lock and opens the small flap. Inside it, I see a server connected with a row of blue ethernet cables, except one yellow ethernet cable which I’m being told is India’s gateway to the undersea cable network and the global Internet. Redundancies are maintained, of course, for a task of this magnitude but everything in this facility is done to ensure that cable is always plugged into the server port and it’s always up and running.

I’m left with goosebumps as I walk out of the main control room, briefly looking at smaller, shielded rooms where different telcos and ISPs that borrow bandwidth from Tata Communications have their own, independent monitoring stations to ensure they’re getting their fair share of Internet bandwidth, as per TRAI license agreements and guidelines.

Before long, my Alice in Wonderland moment is finally over. And as I return my visitor’s badge and try to book an Uber back to the office, I suddenly have a far greater appreciation and understanding of just how the universe works to get me a cab within minutes -- and those undersea cables maintained by Tata Communications play a huge role in making all of that possible. And as they celebrate 15 years of a unique public-private partnership on Valentine's Day Eve later this year, let's hope our love affair with Tata Communications' Internet pipes only blossoms -- that they never fall short of our unceasing, astronomical expectations -- as they continue to play a vital role in enabling connectivity across India and around the globe.

Editor’s note: The author’s claim that the bandwidth of the undersea cable at Tata Communications’ BKC Mumbai landing station is 3.6 Tbps is just an extrapolation of Tata Communications claim that 10% of its India traffic flows through here -- the actual number can be slightly higher or lesser than what’s mentioned in the article. When we asked them for their estimate of India’s total bandwidth, they wouldn’t give us a number, because Tata Communications claims it’s difficult to put a number against the bandwidth of the landing station, because the undersea cable is flexible to ramp up its capacity if needed. Also, the bandwidth number is difficult to ascertain because of certain dependencies that need to be included, according to Tata Communications (and which maybe they aren’t at the liberty to discuss).