  |
15,000 km long submarine cable will have stop-over at Gibraltar
|
A consortium of 16 telecommunications companies, including Gibtelecom, have signed an agreement to construct the 'Europe-India Gateway', a submarine cable that will span 15,000km from the UK to India following the UK-India route of 130 years ago. Gibraltar will be one of the landing points for the cable.
The project is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year at a cost of USDollars 700 million, and will have maximum potential capacity of 3.84Tbps.
The 16 telecoms companies investing in the project are: AT&T, Bharti Airtel, British Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Djibouti Telecom, Du, Gibtelecom, IAM, Libyan Post, Telecom and Information Technology Company, MTN Group, Omantel, PT Comunicacoes, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telkom South Africa, and Verizon.
The Europe-India Gateway will connect the U.K., Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India.
It will have cable landing points at: UK, Portugal,
Gibraltar, Morocco,Marseille,Monaco,Libya,Egypt,Saudi Arabia,Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Mumbai, India.
JUST FANCY THAT
• The cable passes near Galicia in northern Spain (but Spain are not involved in the project) and the Strait of Gibraltar. As regards the Strait area, Spain has said that the cable should not affect the EU site of Community ecological interest - under which she designated that the waters of Gibraltar are Spanish.
It shows to what extent it is important that the erroneous Spanish decision is corrected by the European courts and the sooner this happens the better. Meanwhile, it is important that the Gibraltar Government does not enter into any agreements in the tripartite talks that could perpetuate the Spanish decision over Gibraltar waters.
Reports say that the project does not require to go through a complete impact assessment so as not to damage environmental matters because of the depth the cable will be laid.
10-02-10
|
|
|
|
