Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] is joining five other leading telecom companies to build a high-bandwidth, undersea, fibre-optic cable linking Asia and the US, with an estimated cost of $300 million (Rs 1,200 crore). The new cable, Unity, will carry data and Internet traffic between Asia and the US.

Global Transit (Malaysia), Google (the US), KDDI Corporation (Japan), Pacnet (Singapore) and SingTel (Singapore) are the other members of the consortium.

The consortium has selected NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system. The construction of the cable system would begin immediately, while initial capacity would be available in the first quarter of 2010, said Bharti Airtel on Tuesday in a release.

"This investment is in line with our strategy to extend our international footprint across the globe to provide seamless connectivity to our customers through partnerships with the leading global companies. The Unity cable system will address the demand for increased bandwidth between Asia and the US as more and more services migrate to an online environment. This partnership will also provide alternative routes to meet the demands of our customers for increased levels of network resilience and redundancy," said Airtel Enterprise Services President David Nishball.

The Unity cable system will provide connectivity between Chikura, located off the coast near Tokyo, and Los Angeles and other West Coast network points of presence. At Chikura, Unity will be connected to other cable systems, enhancing connectivity to Asia.

The Unity cable system will initially increase Trans-Pacific cable capacity by about 20 per cent, with the potential to add up to 7.68 Terabits a second (Tb) of bandwidth across the Pacific.