To meet the increasing demand for fibre optic cable, digital technology company Sterlite Technologies (STL) plans to invest Rs 300-crore to boost its production capacity, a top executive of the company said.

"Optic-fibre cable holds a major share of telcos’ overall digital infrastructure investment. The demand is likely to grow to 20.08 million fibre kilometers by 2021 and 24.48 million fibre kilometres by 2022," Anand Agarwal, Sterlite Technologies Limited (STL) Group Chief Executive said, citing a London-based business intelligence firm study.   

STL is planning to invest Rs 300-crore to increase its capacity for optical fiber cables from 18 million to 33 million fibre kilometres as telecom service providers have stepped up investments in digital network infrastructure.   

Telecom incumbents such as Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-driven Bharti Airtel and Kumar Mangalam Birla-headed Vodafone Idea are aggressively deploying their fibre-based networks following the massive surge in data consumption, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) focus, and upcoming fifth-generation or 5G networks.

Nearly a third or 33 per cent of the current 6.25 lakh telecom tower base is fiberalised while only 2.8 million fibre kilometres (fkm) has been deployed in the country as of December 2019, according to Delhi-based Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (Taipa).

Homegrown Sterlite that operates in as many as six countries said that its capacity utilization has exceeded pre-Covid-19 levels, and expects to see further improvements in Q4 of FY21.