I-ME-WE
I-ME-WE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) is a 13,000-kilometre (8,100 mi)[1] submarine communications cable system between India and France. The design capacity is 3.84 Terabits per second. It has been operational since 2009.[2] 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.[3]
The cable system includes a terrestrial link connecting the cities of Alexandria and Suez in Egypt. The I-ME-WE cable system comprises three optical fibre cable pairs and 2 trunk lines. It has cable landing stations at:
- Mumbai (India) (two landing sites)
- Karachi (Pakistan)
- Fujairah (UAE)
- Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)
- Suez (Egypt)
- Alexandria (Egypt)
- Tripoli (Lebanon) Note: not Tripoli, Libya
- Catania (Italy)
- Marseille (France)
The cable system was funded by a consortium of 9 companies from across the world:[4]
- Bharti Airtel (India)
- Etisalat (UAE)
- France Telecom (France)
- Ogero (Lebanon)
- PTCL (Pakistan)
- STC (Saudi Arabia)
- Telecom Egypt (Egypt)
- Telecom Italia Sparkle (Italy)
- Tata Communications (formerly VSNL) (India)
The contract for the construction and maintenance of the cable system has been awarded to Alcatel-Lucent.
[edit] See also
Other cable systems following a substantially similar route are:
[edit] References
- ^ "Alcatel-Lucent to build undersea cable". Business Standard. 2008-02-13. http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=8&subLeft=2&chklogin=N&autono=313560&tab=r. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
- ^ "Bharti Airtel starts Mideast data services". Business Times Malaysia. 2009-12-29. http://www.btimes.com.my/articles/20091228234550/Article/. Retrieved 2010-01-09.[dead link]
- ^ "Imewe Picks Alcatel-Lucent". UnStrung. 2008-02-11. http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=145547. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
- ^ Shanbhag, Raju (2008-02-11). "Global Telecom Leaders to Build I-Me-We Cable System". TMCnet. http://sip.tmcnet.com/topics/service-provider-solutions/articles/20462-global-telecom-leaders-build-i-me-we-cable.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
