Arab states keen on Falcon cable

Telecom authorities in Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Qatar, Egypt and Iraq have expressed interest in signing up for a new high-capacity cable system which will provide the Middle East with advanced broadband connectivity.

Developed by FLAG Telecom, the project is called Falcon and will enable countries participating in the project to deliver new communication services to customers.

These countries are in advanced discussions with FLAG Telecom regarding their participation. Falcon is the Gulf region's first self-healing submarine network ring providing all countries connected to the high capacity cable with reliable, high-quality connectivity.

Branching units can be added along the entire Falcon cable route to allow more countries to connect to the system as their communications needs expand.

Walid Irshaid, president for the Middle East and Africa for FLAG Telecom, said: "Falcon will dramatically change the global communications infrastructure balance.

"We have recognised for some time that the exploding market demand from major growth economies could not be served by the global bandwidth connectivity serving the Middle East and Asia today.

"Across India, Falcon will also provide access to all major cities, offering customers direct connectivity across one of the world's largest growth economies from any metropolitan centre connected to the FLAG global network.

"Our announcement today follows months of project development work and we are now in final negotiations with a shortlist of suppliers. All early engineering work has been completed and preparations for the marine survey are well underway.

"With a forecast initial service date of within 12 months, this is an extremely challenging project, but we believe it is essential to support the growth economies of the Middle East, India and China."

FLAG Telecom is now a company of India's highly diversified $16 billion plus Reliance Group.

Falcon will be funded by FLAG, Reliance and commitments from participating operators. The project will interconnect seamlessly with Reliance's 80,000 kilometre high-speed domestic infrastructure, allowing customers to access major cities connected along the network.

The western link of the Falcon system will land at Telecom Egypt's Landing Station at Suez, where the cable will integrate with FLAG's global network. Falcon will then follow a route through the Red Sea along the East African coast and across the top of the Arabian Sea before landing in Oman.

Stretching from Oman along the easterly link, Falcon will cross the Arabian Sea to a new Reliance-owned landing station at Mumbai.

At this point Falcon will interconnect seamlessly to Reliance's pan-India 80,000 kilometre high-speed backbone network linking approximately 700 cities and towns across the country.

At Chennai, on the east coast of India, where a second Reliance landing station is being built, Falcon will again become a submarine system, linking India to Hong Kong, where the cable once again integrates with FLAG's global network.

With an established customer base of more than 180 leading operators, including all of the top ten international carriers, FLAG owns and manages an extensive optical fibre network spanning four continents and connecting key business markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the US.

It also owns and operates a low latency global MPLS based IP network, which connects most of the world's principal international Internet exchanges.