Preventing Fiber Cuts in India: Embedding Utility Coordination Into Project Delivery
Kanchan Nautiyal is an Associate Director at Arcadis IBI Group with two decades of experience in ICT infrastructure, urban development, and smart city planning. She currently leads multi-state digital infrastructure programs in India and has collaborated with several international agencies and governments on telecom deployment strategies.
According to the Department of Telecommunications [1], as of November 2024, India had deployed over 4.2 million route kilometers of optical fiber cable (OFC), making it one of the most extensive fiber networks globally. This infrastructure forms the backbone of essential digital services—including telecom, broadband, e-governance, surveillance, financial systems, and utility automation.
As fiber extends deeper into last-mile and rural areas under initiatives such as BharatNet and 5G deployment programs, the integrity of this infrastructure becomes increasingly critical. While substantial efforts have been made to expand coverage, far less attention has been paid to protecting the network from damage and disruption.
This article focuses on one of the most persistent and under-addressed operational challenges: the high incidence of fiber cuts. These service disruptions continue to undermine network reliability, raise operational costs, and erode user confidence in digital systems. Today, the problem is not merely the pace of infrastructure growth—it is the absence of safeguards to ensure that what has already been built remains functional, protected and sustainable.
Root Cause of the Fiber Cut Issue – Coordination Gaps
Industry assessments suggest that tens of thousands of fiber cuts occur annually in India, with the majority caused by accidental …
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If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith. - Albert Einstein |
