The cable will also provide a direct, high bandwidth fiber-optic submarine cable system from the U.K. to India.

"The cable will connect 13 countries in three continents and will utilize the state-of-the art generation technology that is designed to provide up to 2.88 terabits per second using dense wavelength-division-multiplexing," Bardill said via e-mail.

Other project financing comes from companies including Telkom Egypt, Telkom South Africa, Verizon, Bharti Telecom of India and Djibouti Telecom.

The introduction of the European Indian Gateway is anticipated to heighten interest in East Africa's broadband sector, which already has two other cables that will be operational next month.

Bardill said MTN is investing in various submarine cable projects to ensure optimum bandwidth capacity, which will be available at lowest cost to all its operations in 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East.