Monday, September 12 2005 18:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: India's Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Sri Lanka's main telecom company SLT today (Sept 12, 2005) signed a deal to lay a three million dollar submarine cable connecting the two countries.

The fibre optic cable system will be established between India's Tuticorine coast at Mount Lavinia, just south of the capital Colombo, the two companies said adding that the line will be operational by the second quarter 2006.

Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL A K Sinha and and Shuhei Anan, Chief Executive Officer of Sri Lank Telecom (SLT), signed the agreement here.

The fibre optic cable will replace the exisiting radio link. After the new cable is set up both BSNL and SLT will be able to access other countries through existing and future cable systems such as SMW3, SMW4 and vast internal terrestrial networks of BSNL, the two companies said in a statement.

The new connection will further extend the broadband IP backbone network to allow higher speeds and more effective transfers between the two countries.

"The cable will initially support 10 gigabits per second which will later be upgraded quickly to a maximum of 160 gigabits per second as traffic continues to grow.

The two companies are to share the cost of setting up the cable andmaintaining it.

Customers at the Sri Lankan side of the cable will be able to better enjoy Indian multimedia content such as Hindi movieswith actual real-time audio and video streaming facilities because of enhanced connectivity.

An analogue microwave link between Rameshwaram and Talaimannar in Sri Lanka's north-western coast was initially established in 1980 but was abandoned in 1987.