Bharti Airtel has joined 15 global telecom companies including South Africa’s MTN, British Telecom, and US-based AT&T and Verizon, to construct a new high bandwidth, sub-sea cable system link ing the UK and India.

Bharti Airtel has joined 15 global telecom companies including South Africa’s MTN, British Telecom, and US-based AT&T and Verizon, to construct a new high bandwidth, sub-sea cable system linking the UK and India. The 15,000 km cable system, called the Europe India Gateway (EIG), will connect 13 countries across three continents and is expected to carry commercial traffic by the second quarter of 2010. The EIG is estimated to cost about $700 million, which will be borne by the 16 members of the consortium.

The EIG consortium has signed construction and supply agreements with Alcatel-Lucent and Tyco Telecommunications. In India, the cable landing station will be located in Mumbai and will be operated by Bharti.