WORLD VIEW

Mumbai, May 7: Bharti Airtel, along with the MTN group, will join 14 global telecom players to build and maintain an undersea cable system, called the Europe India Gateway, from India to the UK.

Bharti and MTN are engaged in exploratory talks that could end with the Sunil Mittal company owning a majority stake in the latter.

A signing ceremony for the construction and maintenance of the cable system took place in London today.

It is understood that a meeting was held between MTN group president Phuthuma Nhleko and Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal. However, Bharti officials did not confirm the meeting.

Others in the consortium are AT&T, BT, Cable &Wireless, Djibouti Telecom, Du, Gibtelecom, IAM, Libyan Telecom, Omantel, PT Comunicações SA, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt, Telkom SA Ltd and Verizon Business.

The submarine cable system, which will be the first direct high-bandwidth optical fibre cable from India to the UK, will cost more than $700 million and enhance India’s connectivity with West Asia and Europe.

The 15000km cable system will connect 13 countries across three continents and is expected to carry commercial traffic by the second quarter of 2010.

Apart from a cable landing station in India, additional centres will be set up in the UK, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The network will also provide interconnection with other major cable systems connecting Europe, Africa, Asia and North America.

The consortium has signed construction and supply agreements with Alcatel-Lucent and Tyco Telecommunications.

“There is a tremendous rise in the use of data and broadband applications among enterprises and consumers globally and India is no exception,” said David Nishball, president (enterprise services) of Bharti Airtel.

“Whether it is large companies leveraging communication technologies to compete in a global environment or consumers seeking real-time entertainment over the Internet, international connectivity has become a vital part of our lives,” he added.

The undersea cable system is expected to complement Airtel’s high bandwidth network and its recent investments in various cable systems.

At present, the company has two international landing stations in Chennai.