* 8,000 km cable to link SE Asia to Middle East
* Cable system seen carrying traffic by end-2014
* Reliance will get international bandwidth for 4G
MUMBAI, April 30 (Reuters) - A group of telecommunicationscarriers including Vodafone Group Plc and India'sReliance Industries Ltd have joined forces to build anundersea cable system across the Indian Ocean to connectSoutheast Asia with the Middle East.
The 8,000-kilometre Bay of Bengal Gateway cable will linkMalaysia and Singapore to the Middle East and will haveconnections to India and Sri Lanka, Reliance said on Tuesday.
The cable system is expected to carry commercial traffic bythe end of 2014, it said. Other members of the consortium areTelekom Malaysia Bhd, Omantel, Etisalat and Dialog Axiata.
The new cable system is significant for energy-focusedReliance, controlled by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, asit readies the launch of fourth-generation (4G) telecom servicesin the world's second-biggest telecommunications market and islooking for international bandwidth.
The move also illustrates how Indian carriers are investingto build wireless data networks in a market where more than 80percent of the carriers' revenue is still from voice calls. Dataservices are growing much faster in India where just a tenth of1.2 billion people use the Internet.
Carriers in India spent a combined $20 billion to buy 3G and4G airwaves in a 2010 auction.
Reliance, the only company in India to have nationwidepermits for 4G services that enable high-speed wirelessInternet, is widely expected to launch the services later thisyear and is sewing up deals with rival carriers.
Last week it signed a deal to lease undersea cable capacityfrom Bharti Airtel on the Chennai to Singaporeroute.
Earlier this month, Reliance Industries said it will leaseinter-city optic fibre capacity from Reliance Communications, owned by Mukesh's younger brother Anil.