New Delhi: : The country’s leading telecom service provider by subscribers Bharti Airtel said on Wednesday that it would join 15 global telecom majors to build the Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable system from India to the United Kingdom at a cost of $700 million. Airtel, along with 15 other telecom majors, has signed a formal construction and maintenance agreement to build the EIG, the first direct, high-bandwidth optical-fibre submarine cable system, Bharti Airtel said in a statement. The 15,000-km cable system would connect 13 countries across three continents and is expected to carry commercial traffic by second quarter 2010.