Europe India Gateway (EIG) | |
---|---|
Owners: 18 companies | |
Landing points | |
Total length | 15,000 km |
Design capacity | 3.84 terabits per second |
Date of first use | February 2011 |
Europe India Gateway (EIG) is a submarine communications cable system that connects the U.K., Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India. [1]
The EIG is approximately 15,000 kilometres long. [1] It was initially designed to deliver up to 3.84 terabits per second [2] but was upgraded in 2015 and 2020. The cable system was built by both Alcatel-Lucent [2] and TE Subcom (formerly known as Tyco) and was scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2010. [2] The cable cost $700 million to build, going live in 2011. [3] The EIG was the first direct high-bandwidth optical fibre system from Britain to India.
The investors in EIG was a consortium of 18 telecoms companies, [4] including: AT&T; Bharti Airtel; BT Group; Cable & Wireless Worldwide; Djibouti Telecom; Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co. (du); Gibtelecom; IAM; Libyan Post Telecommunications & Information Technology Company; Mauritius Telecom; Monaco Telecom; MTN Group; Omantel, PT Comunicações, S.A.; Saudi Telecom Company; Telecom Egypt; Telkom SA, and Verizon Business.
EIG has cable landing points at: [5] [6]
In February 2020, Ciena announced it had completed a major upgrade to the cable to boost capacity for international business traffic, adding 24.3Tbit/s of information carrying capacity, with a spectral efficiency increase of 52%. The EIG can now transport up to 400Gbit/s per wavelength, driving more capacity per channel at longer distances. [10]
In March 2013, the EIG cable was cut near Egypt. [11] A few days later the I-ME-WE and SEA-ME-WE 4 cable was also cut near Egypt, supposedly by divers. [12]
In February 2018, The Sunday Times reported that the infrastructure for the UK landing site of the Apollo, GLO-1 and Europe India Gateway cables had been found almost entirely unprotected. Their reporter was able to reach the premises without being challenged, and found the door to the generator room unlocked and left ajar. Vodafone, who manage the facility, said that he had not reached critical equipment and "would not have been able to interrupt the operation of the facility." [13]
Other cable systems following a substantially similar route are:
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries in Eastern Africa to the rest of the world.
Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) is a 28,000-kilometre-long fibre optic mostly-submarine communications cable that connects the United Kingdom, Japan, India, and many places in between. The cable is operated by Global Cloud Xchange, a subsidiary of RCOM. The system runs from the eastern coast of North America to Japan. Its Europe-Asia segment was the fourth longest cable in the world in 2008.
SEA-ME-WE3 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 is an optical submarine telecommunications cable linking those regions and is the longest in the world. Completed in late 2000, it is led by France Telecom and China Telecom, and is administered by Singtel, a telecommunications operator owned by the Government of Singapore. The Consortium is formed by 92 other investors from the telecom industry. It was commissioned in March 2000.
South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France. It is intended to be a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the SEA-ME-WE 3 cable.
Alcatel–Lucent S.A. was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a successor of AT&T's Western Electric and Bell Labs.
The Telstra Endeavour is a submarine cable connecting Sydney and Hawaii. The cable went live in October 2008, with a capacity of 1.28 terabits per second in the future It was proposed on 28 March 2007 by Telstra, the largest telecommunications carrier in Australia.
TEAMS is an initiative spearheaded by the government of Kenya to link the country to the rest of the world through a submarine fibre optic cable. It was first proposed as an alternative to EASSy, the East African Submarine Cable System. The Kenyan government had grown frustrated with the ownership model favoured by South Africa, the time it was taking and what it perceived as an attempt by South Africa to control the cable. As a result, in November 2006, the Kenyan government decided to partner with the Emirates Telecommunication Establishment (Etisalat) to build its own fibre optic cable.
The 2008 submarine cable disruption refers to three separate incidents of major damage to submarine optical communication cables around the world. The first incident caused damage involving up to five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East from 23 January to 4 February 2008, causing internet disruptions and slowdowns for users in the Middle East and India. The incident called into doubt the safety of the undersea portion of the Internet cable system.
I-ME-WE is a 13,000-kilometre (8,100 mi) submarine communications cable system between India and France. The design capacity is 3.84 Terabits per second. It has been operational since 2009 with Tripoli, Lebanon being connected in November 2011. Internet Service Providers and Network Operators hope to utilize the additional bandwidth to support high-bandwidth peer-to-peer IP-based broadband services such as multimedia streaming, broadband Internet and voice/video telephony.
Greenland Connect is a submarine communications cable system that connects Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. The cable contains two fibre pairs specified for 128*10 Gbit/s wavelength each. Initial lit capacity is 1*10 Gbit/s for each fibre pair. Two additional 10 Gbit/s Wavelength were installed in the summer of 2010. The cable has cable landing points at:
The West Africa Cable System (WACS) is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre pairs and is 14,530 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South Africa to London in the United Kingdom. It has 14 landing points, 12 along the western coast of Africa and 2 in Europe completed on land by a cable termination station in London. The total cost for the cable system is $650 million. WACS was originally known as the Africa West Coast Cable (AWCC) and was planned to branch to South America but this was dropped and the system eventually became the West African Cable System.
Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) is a fiber optic submarine cable telecommunications company and telecommunications service provider based in Bangladesh. Emerging in July 2008 BSCCL presently handles Bangladesh's two submarine cables as a member of the SEA-ME-WE 4 and SEA-ME-WE 5 international submarine cable consortiums. SEA-ME-WE4 cable runs a total length of 18,800 km through 17 landing points in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Italy, Algeria and France.
TE North is a submarine telecommunications cable linking France and Egypt developed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable system is 3,100 km long with a capacity of up to 1.28 Tbit/s over 8 fibre pairs. The cable system expands the service footprint of the existing TE transit corridor by offering additional transit services in the Mediterranean. The cable was launched in 2010 and was later upgraded to use 40G channels in the summer of 2011, becoming the first cable in the Mediterranean to use this technology. The cable has landing points in:
Bezeq International Optical System – JONAH – is a submarine telecommunication cable linking Tel Aviv and Bari. The system, which is fully owned by Israeli communications company Bezeq, spans 2,300 km of cable, and extended terrestrially from Bari through Interoute's network to major European cities.
The Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) is a submarine communications cable providing a direct trunk connection between Barka and Penang (Malaysia) with four branches to Fujairah (UAE), Mumbai (India), Colombo and Chennai (India). The project was carried out by a consortium that includes Vodafone, Omantel, Etisalat, AT&T, China Telecom, Telstra, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Dialog and Telekom Malaysia. Construction was started in May 2013 and was completed by the end of 2014. From Penang the system is connected via a terrestrial connection to Singapore. The length of the submarine Cable system is 5,934 km from Barka to Penang, with a 216 km branch to Fujairah, 426 km branch to Mumbai, 142 km branch to Colombo and a 1,322 km branch to Chennai, totaling a total length of 8,040 km.
South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5 is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore and France. The cable is approximately 20,000 kilometres long and provides broadband communications with a design capacity of 24 terabits per second between South East Asia, the South Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) operates as a wholesaler, providing capacity to international telecos, OTTs, Content Providers and internet service providers within and out of Africa. WIOCC offers carriers connectivity to over 550 locations across 30 African countries – utilising more than 75,000 km (47,000 mi) of terrestrial fibre and 150,000 km (93,000 mi) of submarine fibre-optic cable. WIOCC's international network reach currently extends to 100 cities in 29 countries in Europe and more than 700 cities in 70 countries globally.
Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) is a 25,000 km submarine communications cable system from South East Asia to Europe across Egypt, connecting Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and France. The AAE-1 cable has capacity of at least 40 terabits per second (Tbit/s) to supply the broadband market across Asia, Africa and Europe. In July 2017, it was launched for commercial services and is the longest submarine cable system in over a decade.
South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 6 is an in progress optical fibre submarine communications cable system that would carry telecommunications between Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe. It is estimated to cost between $65 million and US$72 million. Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Djibouti, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, France, Myanmar and Yemen are members of the SEA-ME-WE-6 Consortium. It will run from Singapore to France and will have a bandwidth of 120 Tbps. Once completed, It will be 19,200 km long. Work on SEA-ME-WE 6 began in early 2022. It is expected to be operation in the first quarter of 2025.