energy city qatar, qtel, at&t and navlink sign co-operative agreement to develop advanced networking services for its tenants
Energy City Qatar, the regions first integrated business and residential hub for the hydrocarbon industry will connect businesses to Global Markets
Oil, Gas Companies to Benefit from Access to AT&T’s Worldwide Network
DOHA, Qatar, March 12, 2008 — It was announced today that Energy City Qatar (ECQ) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Qtel, in association with AT&T (through one of its subsidiary companies) and NavLink, to jointly develop and deliver advanced data communications services and solutions to the “first-of-its kind” landmark business centre in the Middle East.
ECQ is a major $2.6 billion development to create the Middle East’s first integrated energy and business centre for the oil and gas industry. With today’s announcement, ECQ is moving rapidly to provide its commercial tenants with the networking expertise, data and voice telecommunications, IP and Internet, hosting and managed services needed for companies to do business both locally and globally.
ECQ will build and provide the physical facilities and infrastructure required to equip a carrier class Internet Data Centre (IDC) and a Network Operations Centre (NOC) in the Energy City service centre in Qatar. The two centres will comply with Qtel’s and AT&T’s standards for these types of facilities.
NavLink, (a company within which Qtel and AT&T both hold a majority shareholding) will supply network management tools and use both the NOC and IDC to deliver a range of AT&T managed and hosting services to the ECQ tenants. Qtel and AT&T will jointly deliver local and global Network Services, respectively, to Energy City tenants in Qatar.
Qtel is a major telecommunications service provider of both fixed and mobile telecommunications in the state of Qatar and is expanding its presence in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia to become one of the world’s top 20 telecommunications companies by 2020. Today’s announcement underlines the strategic investment of resources into consumer wireless, fixed wireless, and managed data services, the latter serving large and corporate business both in Qatar and abroad.
“Qtel is delighted to be involved with this very important initiative as part of our continuous and committed support to Qatar’s business community, represented by this ground breaking project at Energy City.” said Dr. Nasser Marafih, CEO, of Qtel. “Providing local expertise in conjunction with established partners is a win-win situation for all involved and gives Energy City Qatar the support it needs on its journey towards being a major business centre in the Middle East.”
Today’s announcement reflects the continuing focus AT&T is placing in the Middle East region, where the company has made significant investment in recent years. AT&T placed its first Middle East global network node in Doha, Qatar in cooperation with QTel in 2005.
AT&T provides advanced communications services to global multinational customers and offers consistent, resilient, standardized Internet Protocol (IP) services to business customers around the world. These services include IP-based Virtual Private Networks (VPN), which use the latest MPLS technology, and are complemented by an advanced portfolio of data-hosting services and leading IP security offerings.
“AT&T is pleased to be able to play such an important role in this prestigious, landmark project,” said John Gibson, president of Business Development, Middle East and Africa, AT&T Global Business Services. “Today’s announcement is an important opportunity for AT&T to help connect businesses around the world, using the best networking solutions at its disposal to benefit this major business centre in the Middle East, one of the world’s fastest growing economies.”
“ECQ is proud to be associated with Qtel, Qatar’s leading telecommunications company and AT&T -- one of the world’s preeminent telecommunications company,” said Mr. Hesham Al Emadi, Energy city Qatar CEO. “Joining Qtel and AT & T’s advanced telecoms technologies and expertise will play a major role in connecting companies to global markets and expertise within the hydrocarbon industry, thus securing Energy City Qatar’s status as the first global hub for companies in this sector. “
Laurent Delifer, Co-President & COO of NavLink commented, “NavLink is keen on working with ECQ on introducing world-class ICT services; hence, creating more value to ECQ tenants. This is an exciting collaboration and we are looking forward, with our strategic partners, to enable ECQ to offer advanced IP-based services to its tenants within the city as well as managed global connectivity to fulfill their most demanding telecommunication need
