By Irene Tham, Singapore.CNET.com
Friday, March 09 2001 10:50 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,13031743,00.htm

SINGAPORE--Singapore Telecommunications Ltd and India's telecom conglomerate Bharti Enterprises have named their US$650 million submarine fibre-optic network joint venture Network i2i Ltd.

This investment is separate from the US$400 million SingTel paid last August for a 20 percent stake in Bharti Telecom Ltd and a 30 percent stake in Bharti Televentures Ltd.

Bharti Telecom is the holding company for Bharti Group's phone and Internet services while Bharti Televentures owns majority stakes in cellular and fixed-line service providers (in India).

The US$650 million submarine fibre-optic network, called i2i, will link Singapore, Chennai and Mumbai and have a capacity of 8.4 terabits per second--equivalent to 100 million simultaneous telephone calls.

i2i will be shortened by 1,000km to 10,800km as the Singapore-Chennai leg is being laid over land instead of undersea (as planned earlier), said a SingTel spokesperson when contacted.

Construction of the Singapore-Chennai loop has commenced, and should start carrying commercial voice and data by the first quarter of 2002, said SingTel in a statement today. The Singapore telco had earlier scheduled commercial launch by year end.

Alcatel Submarine Networks of France and Fujitsu Ltd of Japan were commissioned to design, manufacture and install the Singapore-Chennai cable for about US$250 million.

Meanwhile, the Chennai-Mumbai link is already half-completed by Bharti Telesonic, SingTel said.

The local telco expects the final phase of the project, linking Singapore and Mumbai, to be fully constructed by the third quarter of 2002. The completion date has been brought forward from 2003.