Gulf Bridge International and du sign cable landing and partnership agreement

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Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, announced signing of an agreement with UAE’s integrated telecom service provider, du, as part of which du will be the landing party for GBI’s new submarine cable. du will be landing this cable in its newly built Fujairah Cable Landing Station.

The launch of Gulf Bridge International’s cable system will provide telecom operators and other communications companies, both in the region and globally, with greater choice, value, diversity and resilience. The cable system, which will utilise the latest subsea fibre cable technology, will connect all the countries of the Gulf region to each other and provide onward connectivity to Europe and Asia.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Mr. Hamad Al Mannai, Executive Vice Chairman, Gulf Bridge International, said: “It is a great pleasure to land and operate the GBI cable system in such an important country as the United Arab Emirates. The opportunity to partner with du, will enable GBI to address the increased demand for international connectivity that is forecast for the UAE, as it continues to grow and diversify its business base.”

“The U.A.E.  is an important market for GBI. It is one of the most communications intensive countries in the Middle East and geographically important because of its proximity and ease of connectivity to other international sub-sea cables,” said Mr. Ahmed Mekky GBI’s CEO. “This new landing station which will connect the UAE to the GBI cable system will improve communications across the region and benefit consumers and businesses alike as the U.A.E.’s economy continue to grow.”

“Our upcoming world-class new cable-landing facility at Fujairah will add strength to our existing landing facilities and reinforce our position as a hub for international traffic, into and out of the Middle East. Gulf Bridge International’s cable will add further resilience and diversity to our existing submarine cables, allowing us to offer better quality of service to our customers and increase our reach in key markets such as Europe and Asia. As a result, the  UAE will benefit from greater connectivity and access to more capacity, that will further stimulate demand for newer bandwidth hungry services like cloud computing and outsourced services. We look forward to a fruitful partnership with GBI.” commented Osman Sultan, CEO, du.

Scheduled to launch in 2011 and designed to operate for up to 25 years, the GBI cable system will connect all the Gulf countries via a core ring, which can re-route traffic thereby increasing resilience. With a design capacity of up to 5 terabits per second on certain cable sections, the GBI Cable System will have the capability to meet the rapid growth in demand that has been forecast for traffic originating and terminating in Gulf.