Bharti Airtel’s Terabit OFC Network to connect Europe and India

Bharti Airtel’s CEO, Mr. Mittal is in London seeking finance for MTN Wireless bid. However, his Enterprise Services, President – David is busy connecting India to Europe. David announced the building of 15,000 km 3.84 Terrabit OFC sub-marince cable system connecting Europe [London] to India via the Middle East. The project is known as Europe India gateway [EIG] and is expected to cost $700 million, which is to be completed by Q2-2010. Alcatel Lucent and Tyco are the telecom vendors for the project.

Memebers in the EIG consortium include – AT&T, BT, C&W, Djibouti Telecom, Du, Gibtelecom, IAM, Libyan Telecom, MTN Group Ltd., Omantel, PT Comunicacoes-S.A, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt, Telkom SA Ltd, and Verizon Business

Mr. David of Bharti Airtel said,

There is a tremendous rise in use of data and broadband applications among enterprises and consumers globally, and India is no exception. Whether it is large enterprises leveraging communications technologies to compete in a truly global environment or consumers seeking real-time entertainment over the internet, international connectivity has become a vital part of our lives.

Its a fantastic move by Bharti Airtel as India will require this connectivity with increasing  broadband subscribers. This will also help Enterprise customers who are planning on complex Remote Infrastructure Management outsourcing and Internet companies who are planning to go local or move part of their datacenters to India.

Reliance Globalcomm [erstwhile Flag Telecom] is already operational on a similar route. Bharti Airtel currently has two submarine cable systems – i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe, and is building an additional cable landing station in Mumbai to land the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable.

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