Telecom Italia Sparkle enters into an MOU with several leading telecommunications operators to work jointly to construct a new submarine cable system linking India, Middle East and Western Europe

Telecom Italia Sparkle announced today that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with leading international telecom service providers, Telekom Egypt, Etilsalat, Saudi Telecom and VSNL to work jointly on the construction of a new submarine cable (I-ME-WE) linking India, the Middle East and Western Europe.
The signing of the MoU marks the first major milestone in the commissioning of the IMEWE cable project. The rapid progress made by the five leading telecom carriers in moving from conceptualization to signing of MoU reflects the strong alignment and commitment amongst the parties towards the IMEWE project.
The cable project will connect the major countries in the region including, India, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France. The cable will leverage the strength of these major carriers and provide interconnection facilities with several existing and emerging systems in the regions.
All the IMEWE members parties are committed to keep up the scorching pace of progress to enable the Ready for Service (RFS) by mid 2008, with expectation of construction contracts being awarded by end 2006.
IMEWE cable system will be built using DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology, with a proposed design capacity of at least 2.56 Terabits per second (Tbps). The network, upon its commissioning, will provide high-speed connectivity to the Asian, Middle East, North & East Africa and Western Europe regions, to meet their exponentially growing bandwidth requirements.

For further information, please contact
Gabriella Improta
Telecom Italia Sparkle
Marketing Wholesale Services- Marketing Communications
Email: gabriella.improta@telecomitalia.it