Verizon enterprise customers can begin taking advantage of the newly activated Europe India Gateway cable. The $700 million high-capacity fiber-optic cable, one of the most advanced submarine cable systems in the world, will provide multinational customers additional diversity and capacity to meet their critical communications needs.

Verizon joined 15 other international communications leaders, which constitute the EIG Consortium, and formally accepted delivery of more than 11,300 kilometers (7,021 miles) of the total 15,000 km (9,320 miles) EIG cable system. The accepted cable system routes are: London to Bude, U.K.; Bude to Portugal to Gibraltar to Monaco to Libya; Monaco to Marseille, France; and Saudi Arabia to Djibouti to Oman to United Arab Emirates to India. The group also accepted 11 of 13 cable landing stations. The only remaining segment to be completed for the EIG is in Egypt where there are two landing sites.

"With the increasing demand for our strategic services and IP-based solutions, this EIG cable system is critical to support our customers’ high-bandwidth communication needs," said Ihab Tarazi, Verizon vice president of global network planning. "This cable activation also shows our customers our strong network investment commitment around the globe. Virtually anywhere our Verizon enterprise customers do business in the world, they can count on us to use our outstanding network capabilities to deliver their communications solutions."

Multinational customers also will be able to take advantage of Verizon’s capacity and routing on the EIG cable system by connecting directly to the company’s ultra-long-haul European network via the Verizon EIG cable terminal station in Marseille, France. Customers also can connect directly from the EIG to the Verizon network in India.

In addition to complementing existing high-bandwidth cable systems in the region, the EIG cable system will provide much-needed diversity for broadband traffic currently relying largely on traditional routes from Europe to India. This is important, considering the threat of earthquakes in this region.

With the addition of the EIG, Verizon is preparing to extend its industry-leading global mesh architecture to this cable. Meshing is a network design that connects undersea cable systems on land, allowing for instantaneous rerouting of traffic in the event of multiple undersea cable breaks. The company operates a global mesh network that circles the globe, and EIG will provide additional redundant mesh paths needed during service impacting events.

When fully activated, the EIG will be the first direct high-bandwidth optical fiber system from the United Kingdom to India. The design capacity on the full system is 3.84 terabits per second (Tbps) using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide upgradeable transmission facilities.

The EIG is the third major submarine cable project Verizon has helped launch in the last six years. The company continues its global network leadership work, delivering more capacity, reliability and speed for data, video, IP-based solutions and strategic services needed by its multinational customers. The company is involved in more than 80 submarine cables worldwide.

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