VSNL to construct new submarine cable system linking India-ME-WE

Mumbai, Oct 23 (UNI) Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), a Tata Group promoted company, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work jointly on the construction of a new submarine cable (I-ME-WE) linking India, the Middle East and Western Europe with leading international telecom service providers, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt and Telecom Italia Sparkle.

Announcing this to BSE, the company said the signing of the MoU marks the first major milestone in the commissioning of the IMEWE cable project. The rapid progress made by the five leading telecom carriers in moving from conceptualization to signing of MoU reflects the strong alignment and commitment amongst the parties towards the IMEWE project.

The cable project will connect the major countries in the region including India, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France. The cable will leverage the strength of these major carriers and provide interconnection facilities with several existing and emerging systems in the regions.

All the IMEWE members parties are committed to keep up the scorching pace of progress to enable the Ready for Service (RFS) by mid 2008, with expectation of construction contracts being awarded by end 2006.

IMEWE cable system will be built using DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology, with a proposed design capacity of at least 2.56 Terabits per second (Tbps). The network, upon its commissioning, will provide high-speed connectivity to the Asian, Middle East, North&East Africa and Western Europe regions, and meet their exponentially growing bandwidth requirements.

UNI SN KU SKB1818