Global Cloud Xchange

Overview

With connections to 40 key business markets worldwide spanning Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East, GCX delivers Managed Services to more than 160 countries and offers extensive VPLS-enabled Ethernet network capabilities globally.

GCX has principal offices in Mumbai and Hong Kong in addition to offices in Australia, Belgium, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

History

GCX Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of RCOM, which is listed in India on the BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited and is one of India’s largest telecommunications service companies providing wireless, wire line, long-distance, voice, data, video and Internet communications services. RCOM is part of the Reliance Group, one of India’s largest business groups which has a significant presence in the telecommunications, financial services, and entertainment, energy and infrastructure sectors.

Global Cloud Xchange was formed as part of the rebranding of certain businesses of RGBV, which includes FLAG Telecom Group Limited (“FLAG”), Reliance Vanco Group Limited (“Vanco”) and Yipes Holdings, Inc. (“Yipes”).

In 2003, the Reliance Group acquired and, in 2008, renamed FLAG as Reliance Globalcom Limited (“RGL”). RGL owns and operates various undersea and terrestrial fiber assets around the world, including the FEA cable system linking Europe to Asia via the Middle East and India. Before being acquired by Reliance Group, FLAG was listed on the NASDAQ National Market and London Stock Exchange. FLAG was first established in 1993 by a group of telecommunications companies led by Bell Atlantic.

In 2007, RGL acquired Yipes through one of RGL’s wholly owned subsidiaries. Yipes is a US-based Ethernet Service provider which provides Ethernet and application delivery services for global enterprises. Established in 1999, Yipes has pioneered the Ethernet technology in metropolitan area networks.

In 2008, RGL acquired Vanco through one of its wholly owned subsidiaries. Vanco is a global Wide Area Network Operator. Vanco provides enterprise clients, directly or through partners, with optimized fully managed network solutions. Vanco was established in 1988 and its original parent company, Vanco plc, was listed on the London Stock Exchange before it was acquired by RGL.

In 2011, Reliance Globalcom set up world’s first global Mediterranean gateway and hub in Europe set up with Hawk cable system.

In April 2013, Reliance Globalcom integrated Hawk cable system with Reliance Global Network. Later in December, it upgraded Trans-Atlantic cable with 100G technology.

In March 2014, RGL rebranded as Global Cloud Xchange (GCX) under the leadership of CEO, Bill Barney, to align with the company’s strategic plan to deliver an integrated portfolio of infrastructure, data center and managed network services with Cloud capabilities, especially across key emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East.

In March and June 2014, GCX announced plans for new subsea cables between Tokyo and California and between Mumbai and Singapore respectively, to bridge important gap and meet soaring bandwidth demands of new cloud-based applications and services.

In July 2014, GCX announced successful debut in the Global Capital Market by raising US $350M fixed rate notes maturing in 2019. The deal received an overwhelming response from the market, and was significantly oversubscribed.

In October and December 2014, GCX launched transformational Cloud X platform in Hong Kong and London. This new high performance enterprise-class platform delivers applications and content across the company’s privately owned global fiber optic network.

In March 2015, Reliance Communications (RCOM), the parent company of GCX, expanded the role of Bill Barney, CEO of Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), to also oversee RCOM’s Enterprise, IDC and National Long Distance (NLD) operations in India, while continuing as Chairman and CEO of GCX.

In 2015, GCX launched Cloud X Fusion, providing low latency connectivity across developed and emerging markets in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia, which gives enterprises security, reliability and predictability.

In July 2015, Reliance Communications (RCOM) expanded its next generation content and cloud delivery network – part of its subsidiary Global Cloud Xchange – to five additional cities in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad as part of a wider strategy to support future growth in the country. These Cloud Xchange nodes can help government departments access 240 times the amount of compute power currently available in government data centers, and over 6 times the high speed storage currently available in India.

In August 2015, Reliance Communications’ Global Cloud Xchange to expand Singapore-India connectivity, a major step forward to deliver next generation connectivity services to support the digital transformation and economic growth of India.

In February 2016, Global Cloud Xchange (GCX) announced the launch of Cloud X in Sydney, enabling customers across Australia to have on-net access to public Cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Softlayer, Google, Rackspace, VMWare and more than 20 others worldwide, as well as software services like Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps for Work.

In May 2016, Global Cloud Xchange was named Best Managed Services Provider at the Telecom Asia Awards held in conjunction with the annual Telco Strategies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Global Network

The principal elements of the Global Cloud Xchange Global Network include five subsea cable systems operating on major global data traffic routes: the Trans-Atlantic route, the Europe-Asia route, the Europe-Middle East & Egypt route and the Intra-Asia route.

As of June 30, 2014, these cable systems had a total length of 68,698 route kilometres (“rkm”) and landed at 46 landing stations in 27 countries. GCX has launched India Cloud Xchange (ICX) through capacity acquired on the TIC cable to boost its connectivity between India and Singapore. GCX is also expanding through Pacific Cloud Xchange (PCX) which will connect Tokyo with the US west coast. With the added capacity on TIC and the completion of PCX, GCX will deliver further economies of scale and network cost savings to its clients.

GCX has owned as well as leased terrestrial networks with a total length of 83,432 rkm integrated within the subsea cable system. These are present in over 34 metropolitan areas across 14 countries covering major business centres. GCX also has a scalable global IP and multi-protocol label switching (“MPLS”) network provided over 27 diverse owned and leased international subsea and terrestrial cable routes, with 836 direct inter-connections to 342 third party networks.

GCX’s managed network services platform connects approximately 27,000 sites in 158 countries through a combination of leased and owned infrastructure offered through a dedicated secure IP network. Two GNOCs in Denver and Mumbai act as the global network operational centres of the GCX Global Network, the functions of which include 24-hour monitoring, network operations, restoration coordination and technical support.

Leadership

Senior Leadership

Regional Leadership