NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel has signed up with 15 global telecommunications majors to build the Europe-India Gateway (EIG) cable system. A formal construction and maintenance agreement was signed in London recently to build the first direct, high-bandwidth optical-fiber submarine cable system from India to United Kingdom. Costing more than $700 million, it will significantly enhance capacity and diversity to connect India to the Middle East and Europe. The 15,000-kilometer cable system will connect 13 countries across three continents and is expected to carry commercial traffic by the second quarter of 2010. Airtel will operate the cable landing station in Mumbai. The other members of the EIG cable consortium include AT&T, BT, C&W, Djibouti Telecom, Du, Gibtelecom, IAM, Libyan Telecom, MTN Group Ltd., Omantel, PT Comunicações-S.A, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt, Telkom SA Ltd, and Verizon Business. The next generation cable system is designed to provide up to 3.84 terabits (Tbps) using dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide upgradeable transmission facilities that support Internet, e-commerce, video, data and voice. The EIG consortium has signed construction and supply agreements with Alcatel-Lucent and Tyco Telecommunications. According to Bharti Airtel Enterprise Services president David Nishball, “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.” Beyond the Airtel cable landing station in India, additional cable landings will be provided in United Kingdom, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman and United Arab Emirates. The EIG cable system will also provide seamless interconnection with other major cable systems connecting Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. In addition to complementing existing high bandwidth cable systems in the region, the EIG cable system will provide much needed diversity for broadband traffic currently relying largely on traditional routes from Europe to India. The EIG cable system, with its large bandwidth and high quality transmission technology, will help meet the present and future growth in telecommunications traffic between the targeted regions. Airtel currently has two international landing stations in Chennai that connect its two existing 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.