Singapore: The first phase of the $ 650 million Singapore-India undersea submarine cable network, Network i2i, is ready for service and would begin carrying commercial traffic in April.

The 10,800-km cable network, being developed by Network i2i - a 50:50 joint venture of Bharti Group and SingTel of Singapore would link Singapore to Chennai and Mumbai with connectivity to Bangalore and Hyderabad, company sources said.

The i2i cable network would be a key conduit of data traffic between Singapore and India.

Having the world's largest design capacity of 8.4 terabits per second, the i2i cable network utilises the latest Dense Wavelenth Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology to provide transmission facilities, which can be upgraded, to meet future traffic growth.

The first phase would link Chennai-Bangalore-Mumbai, Chennai-Hyderabad-Mumbai and Mumbai-Delhi, sources said adding 11,000 route km of optic fibre cable (OFC) had been laid in the country.

The Singapore-Chennai leg of the project would cost $ 250 million while the second phase Singapore-Mumbai would cost another $ 400 million.

i2i network would have Gateways in Bangalore, Bhopal, Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai that would allow customers to set up POPs (point of presence) in these cities connected via Bharti's domestic links, they added.

PTI