I-ME-WE

I-ME-WE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) is a 12,091-kilometre (7,513 mi)^[1] submarine communications cable system linking Europe and India via the Middle East. At launch, the design capacity was 3.84 Tbit/s, but after upgrades by Mitsubishi Electric in 2016, the new design capacity was rated at 5.6 Tbit/s.^[2] The cable entered service in December 2010.^[3]

I-ME-WE
Owners: Consortium
Total length	12,091 km
Design capacity	5.6 Tbit/s
Technology	DWDM
Date of first use	2010

The cable consists of three fiber pairs, one of which is a terrestrial link connecting Alexandria and Suez in Egypt. The contract for construction and maintenance of the cable was awarded to Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN), supported by NEC as subcontractor, at a total cost of US$480 million.^[4]

Landing points and operators

The IMEWE consortium comprises nine telecom companies across eight countries.^[4]

I-ME-WE Cable Landing Points

Location	Operator & Technical Partner
Marseille, France	Orange S.A[5]
Catania, Italy	Telecom Italia Sparkle[3]
Tripoli, Lebanon	Ogero[6]
Alexandria, Egypt Suez, Egypt	Telecom Egypt[7]
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	Saudi Telecom Company[8]
Fujairah, UAE	Etisalat by e&[9]
Karachi, Pakistan	Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited[10]
Mumbai, India	Bharti Airtel[11] Tata Communications[12]

See also

Other cable systems following a substantially similar route are:

• Europe-India Gateway (EIG)
• FLAG Europe Asia
• SEA-ME-WE 3
• SEA-ME-WE 4
• SEA-ME-WE 5