Airtel has announced the landing of the 2Africa Pearls subsea cable within the country. This development aims to enhance India’s international connectivity by linking it to Africa and Europe via the Middle East.
Airtel serves as the landing partner for the 2Africa Pearls cable in India, collaborating with the cable’s investors, center3 and Meta. The 2Africa Pearls system is designed to provide over 100 terabits per second (Tbps) of international bandwidth to India.
Airtel’s participation in this project is presented as a strategic move to diversify its global network infrastructure in support of India’s digital expansion.
The 2Africa Pearls cable is an extension of the broader 2Africa cable system, which, upon completion, is projected to be one of the longest subsea cable systems globally, extending over 45,000 kilometers.
The 2Africa system connects Asia, Africa, and Europe through the Middle East. The consortium behind the 2Africa cable system includes Bayobab, center3, China Mobile International, Meta, Orange, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone Group, and WIOCC. Alcatel Submarine Networks is responsible for the manufacturing and installation of the cable.
Airtel’s existing global network infrastructure spans 400,000 route kilometers (Rkms) across 50 countries and five continents. The company has invested in 34 subsea cables globally, including recent projects such as 2Africa, the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable 2 (SJC2), and Equiano.
In addition to the 2Africa Pearls cable, Airtel’s global subsea network investments encompass various cable systems, including the i2i Cable Network (i2icn), Europe India Gateway (EIG), IMEWE, SEA-ME-WE-4, AAG, Unity, EASSy, Gulf Bridge International (GBI), and the Middle East North Africa Submarine Cable (MENA Cable). These investments aim to connect India to regions such as the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.
Commenting on this, Sharat Sinha, Director & CEO – Airtel Business, said:
We are thrilled to bring the 2Africa Pearls cable to India adding to our network resilience. We are aggressively diversifying our global network and recently landed the SEA-WE-ME-6 cable in Chennai and Mumbai. We will continue investing in global cable systems and future-proof our network with an aim to deliver high uptime, reliability, and superior quality network to our customers.