Thursday, February 24, 2011
Bharti airtel and other global telcos launch Europe India Gateway
The 15,000 Km cable has received investment of around $700 million and has a capacity of 3.84 terabits per second. EIG stretches from Mumbai in India to London UK, with landings enroute in UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Monaco & Marseilles, Gibraltar, Portugal and the UK. Apart from the segment of EIG in Egypt, the remaining cable is now available for commercial use.
With the launch of EIG, Bharti airtel added the connectivity to the Middle East, Africa and Europe by offering enhanced capacity, redundancy and network resilience. The company has been elected by the consortium to provide services relating to Network Administration and Network Operations Control functions for EIG.
The deployment of EIG will also boost the connectivity requirements of the African continent by complementing the largest existing submarine cable in Africa, the EASSy cable in which airtel has investments. airtel will have the capability to connect its capacities in EIG and EASSy seamlessly – this will offer customers enhanced international connectivity and network diversity. When fully activated with the Egypt link, the EIG will be the first direct high-bandwidth optical fiber system from the UK to India. In addition to complementing existing high-bandwidth cable systems in the region, the EIG will provide much needed diversity for broadband traffic, which currently relies on traditional routes from Europe to India.
The EIG Consortium members are: AT&T, Bharti airtel; BT; Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.; Cable&Wireless Worldwide; Djibouti Telecom; du; Gibtelecom; Libyan Post, Telecom and Information Technology Company; MTN Group Ltd; Omantel; PT Comunicações, S.A.; Saudi Telecom Company; Telecom Egypt; Telkom SA Ltd; and Verizon.
