Bharti airtel in collaboration with 16 other global telecom operators, have launched a new international cable system called the Europe India Gateway (EIG) that will enhance diversity and capacity between Europe and India. The 15,000 km cable is worth $700 million and has a capacity of 3.84 terabits per second. A statement from Airtel Ghana said the EIG stretches from Mumbai in India to London, UK, with land stations in UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Monaco & Marseilles, Gibraltar, Portugal and the UK. The statement said the deployment of EIG would also boost connectivity requirements of Africa by complementing the largest existing submarine cable in Africa, the EASSy cable in which airtel has investments. It said Airtel would have the capability to connect its capacities in EIG and EASSy seamlessly, adding that this will offer customers enhanced international connectivity and network diversity. “Apart from the segment of EIG in Egypt, the remaining cable is now available for commercial use,” it said. The statement said the EIG is the third state-of-the-art cable Bharti airtel has added to its existing infrastructure on India-Middle East- Europe route. “The seamless connection and combination between landing stations of IMEWE, EIG and SMW4 will allow Bharti airtel to offer enhanced redundancy and network resilience to the customers in India, Middle East and Asia Pacific region,” it said. It said Bharti Airtel has also been elected by the consortium to provide services relating to Network Administration and Network Operations Control functions for EIG. The statement said when fully activated with the Egypt link, the EIG will be the first direct high-bandwidth optical fiber system from the UK to India, adding that it will also complement existing high-bandwidth cable systems in the region and provide much needed diversity for broadband traffic. 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. Cable equipment suppliers for the EIG cable system are Tyco Electronics Sub-sea Communications (TE SubCom) and Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Cable Networks (ASN). Story by: Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona/Adom News/Ghana