Alcatel-Lucent was awarded a contract to deploy the Atlantic-Mediterranean segment of the 15,000 km (9,000 mile), Europe India Gateway (EIG) submarine cable system.
The planned Europe India Gateway (EIG) will connect three continents at a cost of more than US$700 million. The 15,000-kilometer (9,000-mile) cable network system is expected to be completed in 2010. Landings are planned in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India. 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. Capacity is expected to scale to 3.84 Tbps.
Alcatel-Lucent will provide complete turnkey work for its portion of the EIG system. Alcatel-Lucent will have responsibility for the design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the Atlantic-Mediterranean submarine segment, which spans 7,100 km. The company will also use the 1678 Metro Core Connect, and deploy its latest generation 1626 Light Manager DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) transmission equipment to provide seamless connectivity across the two terrestrial links in the UK and Egypt at 40 Gbps.http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhttp://europeindiagateway.com/
- In February 2008, a consortium of nine leading global telecom carriers met in Rome to sign a formal Construction and Maintenance Agreement for a new high-capacity fiber-optic submarine cable that will stretch from India to France via the Middle East. The cable system, known as I-ME-WE (India, Middle East, Western Europe) is the fifth in the series of similar cable systems which includes the SEA-ME-WE series. Parties to the agreement include Bharti Airtel (India), Etisalat (UAE), France Telecom (France), Ogero (Lebanon), PTCL (Pakistan), STC (Saudi Arabia), TE (Egypt), TIS Sparkle (Italy) and VSNL (India). The I-ME-WE cable system is being designed to provide up to 3.84 Tbps and span almost 14,000 kilometers. The companies hope to have the cable in service by late 2009.