MUMBAI (Reuters) - Reliance Industries said on Tuesday it has joined a consortium of telecom companies building an 8,000 kilometre submarine cable system to link Malaysia and Singapore with the Middle East.
The Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) cable system, which will have connections to India and Sri Lanka, is expected to carry commercial traffic by end of 2014, Reliance said in a statement.
Other members of the consortium include Telekom Malaysia , Vodafone, Omantel , Etisalat and Dialog Axiata .
Reliance, which is the only company with nationwide permits for 4G services in India, last week took a step closer to launching the services in a fiercely competitive telecoms market with a deal to lease undersea cable capacity from Bharti Airtel on the Chennai to Singapore route.
(Reporting by Prashant Mehra; Editing by Sunil Nair)