Helping Transform India: EIG

Playing a distinct role in linking countries together, submarine cables have been silently at work, ensuring seemless Ethernet and mobile connectivity at all times.

Submarine cable projects are generally large projects requiring a sizable amount of investment and few companies have been making investments in new submarine cables. Europe India Gateway (EIG) is one such submarine cable linking India with the European continent. EIG is the first high bandwidth (3.84 terabits per second) cable system using dense wavelength division multiplexing technology connecting the United Kingdom with India via the Mediterranean Sea.

Paul McCann, regional group manager, Asia Pacific network planning, Verizon Business says, “The $700 mn high-capacity fiber-optic cable, one of the most advanced submarine cable systems in the world, will provide multinational customers additional diversity and capacity to meet their critical communications' needs.”

Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable system is expected to significantly enhance capacity and diversity between the countries of 3 continents. The cable is lit at the initial capacity of more than 500 gigs (consortium capacity). EIG will provide much needed diversity for broadband traffic, which currently relies on traditional routes from Europe to India.

In India, Bharti have one landing pad in Mumbai with BSNL also partnering. EIG cable system connects at Bharti airtel's landing station in Mumbai.

The traditional Europe bound traffic has been relying on SEMEWE3 cable system, whose capacity has been fully consumed now. EIG, IMEWE and SEMEWE4 are the next generation consortium cables and will play a major role in meeting the requirements of the ever-growing internet traffic between the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, Europe, and beyond.

With ever-growing bandwidth requirement for services like 3G and WiMax launching in India, the need of the hour will be to handle this traffic effectively with the help of such cable systems. Modern fiber optic submarine cable systems have been found to be far superior as compared to early generation coax cable, satellite and microwave networks to carry voice and data traffic.

“The internet demand in India is increasing by more than 100% on y-o-y basis. The telcos have activated their individual portions of the system to offer services that will enhance capacity and diversity between Europe and India. The extra capacity and reliability provided by EIG will help us to meet the surging bandwidth requirements witnessed by the Middle East, Africa, and Europe,” Bharti airtel says.

Today's submarine systems can support the shorter latency demand and virtually error-free communications. Expansion of cable systems around the globe and evolving technology offering higher bandwidth on existing fiber networks will significantly reduce costs and improve quality.

“Cables like EIG will offer diversity, increased redundancy and network resilience to the customers transiting through India and vice verse to the Middle East and European countries. New cable constructions will further extend capacity to undeserved markets in Gulf region as well as countries like Lebanon and Tunisia,” adds Bharti airtel's spokesperson.

EIG's capacity ie, 3.84 terabits per second (Tbps) uses dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide upgradeable transmission facilities that support present and future internet, e-commerce, data, video, and voice services.

“The EIG submarine cable is one of the submarine cables that Verizon will utilize to access India. Indian customers can benefit from the EIG submarine cable, if they are already utilizing Verizon out of India,” says Paul McCann, Verizon Business.

Akanksha Singh
akankshas@cybermedia.co.in