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Reliance Communications and China Telecom have opened the first direct terrestrial optical cable between China and India.

The new cable, initially lit at 20Gbps, runs through the mountainous terrain of the Nathula Pass between Yadong, Tibet, and Siliguri in northeast India.

The new cable will support enterprise connectivity and also extend broadband services to more rural regions in China and India, Reliance said in a statement. 

Previously, the only connections between the two Asian giants were subsea cable routes through Hong Kong or Singapore.

The new terrestrial connection offers lower latency and better voice clarity. It also is not impacted by earthquakes or typhoons, as seen in the recent cable breaks off Taiwan, in which Reliance’s FNAL network was cut in multiple places.

Reliance Globalcom, the Reliance group’s global connectivity arm, says it can now offer business class service with dual cable route diversity between India and China.

“India and China represent the largest growing economies in the world, and the current global economic environment requires ever increasing high-bandwidth, converged applications to be run between these markets,” Reliance president Punit Garg said.