Monday, August 16, 2010

EaSSy - Airtel and others have launched the 10,000 km undersea cable system

[prokerala] India's Bharti Airtel and 15 other global telecom companies together launched a 10,000 km submarine cable system Thursday to connect east Africa with the rest of the world.

The EASSy cable system possess a capacity of 1.4 terabites per second, which makes it the largest submarine cable system serving the African continent.

It is also the first east coast system to connect a direct route to Europe thereby delivering data traffic faster to key Internet peering points in Europe and North America, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel acquired the African telecom assets of Kuwait's Zain recently.

The cable system will help spread broadband connectivity to all parts of Africa, a prerequisite for the successful production of e-commerce, Internet and other broadband applications for the continent.

"The commencement of EASSy cable system is a step to create a robust undersea cable infrastructure for our customers," said Ajay Chitkara, chief executive officer, global data business, Bharti Airtel.

The companies have invested over $263 million in this project.

The consortium along with Bharti Airtel includes players such as British Telecom, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, MTN International Group and Telkom South Africa.

Bharti and 15 others launch submarine cable system in Africa

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