Bharti and 15 others launch submarine cable system in Africa
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.
