Bharti Airtel has said that it would partner Facebook parent Meta to jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure that would extend a subsea cable — the 2Africa Pearls — to India.
About 2Africa Pearls
- The 2Africa Pearls was launched in 2020.
- It connects 23 countries through 37,000-km subsea cable.
- It has become one of the world’s longest subsea cable systems and aims to provide faster internet connectivity to almost 3 billion people.
- It would connect Africa, Europe, and Asia.
- The extended 2Africa Pearls branch will include landing locations in Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India, and Saudi Arabia.
- The landing of 2Africa will improve the connectivity of fixedline broadband internet in India.
- Airtel will partner Meta and Saudi Telecommunication Company to extend 2Africa Pearls to India.
- The companies will extend the cable to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai and also pick up the dedicated capacity to further strengthen its submarine network portfolio.
- Bharti Airtel owns three cable landing stations — two in Chennai and one in Mumbai.
