New Digital Corridor to Link Mediterranean and Arabian Seas

Telecom Egypt, Egypt’s first integrated telecom operator and one of the largest subsea cable operators in the region, and Zain Omantel International (ZOI), the Middle East’s premier international wholesale powerhouse with access to more than 20 international subsea cables in the region, have joined forces to establish a unique digital corridor.

This corridor will seamlessly connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Sea and Arabian Gulf, creating an unprecedented Eurasian data highway.

The innovative infrastructure will extend from Oman’s Arabian Sea and Gulf shores to Egypt’s Mediterranean coastline, employing a high fibre count, cutting-edge blend of terrestrial and subsea segments.

The terrestrial segments, spanning Oman, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, promise unparalleled reliability and protection. On the other hand, the subsea section, directly linking Saudi Arabia and Egypt through the Red Sea, will feature a high-capacity, repeaterless cable system.

This route design will provide Telecom Egypt and ZOI’s partners and customers with the best resiliency and reliability for its end-to-end solution. Furthermore, the infrastructure will be extended to Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan through ZOI’s network and collaboration with the licensed cable landing parties in each country.

Revolutionary Opportunity

This collaboration also offers a revolutionary opportunity for subsea cable owners. By connecting to this open access system, they can significantly reduce their construction costs and greatly enhance latency, resilience, and market response times.

Telecom Egypt will develop new infrastructure across Egypt from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and onwards to Europe, complemented by ZOI’s robust infrastructure across the Middle East. This new network route will have the shortest, enhanced latency profile, giving hyperscalers, subsea cable providers, carriers and telecom operators improved connectivity options from the Indian Ocean to Europe.

Mohamed Nasr, Managing Director and CEO of Telecom Egypt, said that the strategic project is a game-changer in the Eurasia route connectivity landscape.

“As we look for innovative ways to better serve our customers, we will consistently strive to provide a seamless international connectivity network and increase our diversity layers, without compromising quality, cost or speed. We will do this by leveraging on both Telecom Egypt’s established history in the subsea cables arena and its experienced and competent team,” he averred.

Sohail Qadir, Chief Executive Officer at ZOI, said that ZOI was created to revolutionise the wholesale telecom scene and this is an example of what the future holds. ZOI will facilitate the landing of subsea connections through its shareholders such as Omantel and Zain KSA being the licensees in those jurisdictions.

“This one-of-a-kind infrastructure will be expanded to most of ZOI’s network footprint to maximise the benefit to our group operations across the region. The value that this digital corridor will create is enormous and it will be widely realized in the region and beyond not only from a connectivity point of view, but also on technological, commercial and social levels,” he added.