Neil Tagare Hardwires A "Super Internet"

Neil Tagare readily admits he'll be among the first to nab one of Iridium's new call-from-anywhere satellite phones. It makes perfect sense when you consider that in the past few years the Mumbai (Bombay) native has ventured to more than 100 countries to expound on his multibillion-dollar plan to wire the planet.

By 2002, Tagare says, his Project Oxygen will link 74 countries and locations through 101 landing points with 98,000 miles of 640-Gbps fiber-optic cable. And that's only Phase One. The ultimate mission is to carry 98 percent of the world's bit traffic, establishing what Tagare proudly terms a "super Internet" and what one analyst calls a "system of almost inconceivable scale and audacity."

At just 37, Tagare has the cred to pull it off. He was the mastermind behind FLAG (see "Mother Earth, Motherboard," Wired 4.12, page 97), the longest submarine cable in the world and the first to be privately financed.

At heart, this one-man telecosm sees himself on a quest for social change. The mega network, he contends, "will level the playing field between developed and developing countries." Oxygen, to his mind, is as essential to our collective future as the air we breathe.

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