| Cable Name: | I-ME-WE |
| Owners: | Consortium |
| Technology: | DWDM |
| Design Capacity: | 5.6 Tbit/s |
| Length: | 12,091 km |
| First Use Date: | 2010 |
I-ME-WE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) is a 12091km (7,513miles)[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]
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]
The IMEWE consortium comprises nine telecom companies across eight countries.
| Marseille, France | Orange S.A[5] | |
| Catania, Italy | Telecom Italia Sparkle | |
| Tripoli, Lebanon | Ogero[6] | |
| Alexandria, EgyptSuez, 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] |
Other cable systems following a substantially similar route are: