Foreseeing a rapid increase in its requirements for international bandwidth, and in a move, which is in line with its plans to be a major player in the enterprise segment, Bharti Airtel, leading private telecom operator in India, is set to join two international undersea cable consortiums for submarine links to Europe and the United States.Bharti has joined the Telekom Malaysia (TM) led 17-member consortium of telecommunication companies to set up an Asia-America gateway (AAG) — the first submarine-cable system linking South-East Asia directly to the US. At the same time, Bharti is said to be in talks with other Asian, African, and European telecom majors for building the fifth (South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe; Sea-Me-We-5) undersea submarine cable connecting South East Asia to Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.AAG is a 20,000 km-long cable system, which is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2008, and when completed it will connect 10 loc
