The new system, named the Europe India Gateway (EIG), is the third major submarine cable project Verizon Business has helped launch in the last four years and continues to deliver more capacity, reliability and speed for the data, video and voice services of its multinational customers.

The 15,000km cable network system, expected to be completed in 2010, will connect three continents at a cost of more than $700 million and have a design capacity of up to 3.84Tbit/s.

"This new cable system will provide not only a second, diverse route from India to Europe, but also direct access to our network in Europe," said Ihab Tarazi, Verizon Business VP of global network planning. "Combined with our other network capabilities, we will offer our customers reduced latency (the time it takes data sent from its entry point in the network to reach its destination), reduced provisioning time and increased reliability."

Middle East, India markets
Verizon Business is the only U.S.-based founding member of the Trans-Pacific Express Cable, which will provide the first high-speed direct link between the United States and mainland China when activated in July. Verizon Business also is the only founding U.S. partner in an existing Southeast Asia-to-Europe (via the Indian subcontinent) submarine cable called SEA-ME-WE-4 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4).

The EIG will give Verizon Business customers a second, diverse landing in France. As with SEA-ME-WE-4, Verizon Business will operate a landing station in Marseilles that will connect directly with the company's recently expanded ultra-long-haul network in Europe.

With the addition of the EIG, Verizon Business also plans to extend its global mesh architecture to the Middle East and India. Meshing is network design that connects undersea cable systems on land, allowing for instantaneous rerouting of traffic in the event of multiple undersea cable breaks. Currently, the company operates a seven-way diverse mesh network between the United States and Europe and five-way diversity between the United States and Japan, with expansion to seven-way diversity to Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan planned for the second half of 2008.

Verizon Business continues to expand its partnerships and presence in the Middle East and India. Verizon Business earlier this year received licenses for international and national long-distance services in India and will offer a full range of services including international private-leased circuits with multiprotocol label switching and Internet protocol services. The company already holds an Internet service provider license in India.