The Europe India Gateway (EIG) consortium has completed the first phase of a 100G upgrade using equipment provided by Ciena.
The consortium is conducting the upgrade to cope with the 38% annual increase in demand for data services between Europe and Asia over the next few years.
Ciena is deploying its GeoMesh subsea cable system for the multi-terabit upgrade. The turnkey contract also includes the supply of an intelligent control plane and reconfigurable switching system, as well as project management and integration services.
The 15,000 km EIG cable system connects 12 countries across three continents, spanning between the UK and India. The first phase of the upgrade covered the link between the UK and Djibouti, and the second phase is now underway.
“High-bandwidth, on-demand applications and services continue to put pressure on today’s submarine networks, requiring providers like EIG to leverage platforms that not only increase capacity but also provide more programmability and enhanced network management capabilities,” Ciena GM of submarine systems Ed McCormack said.
The members of the EIG consortium are AT&T, Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Bharti Airtel, BT, C&WW, Djibouti Telecom, du, Gibtelecom, The Libyan International Telecommunications Company, Mauritius Telecom, Monaco Telecom, MTN, Omantel, PT Comunicações, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt, Telkom and Verizon Business.