Khartoum, Sudan and London, UK, 17 November 2005: Canar Telecommunication Co. (Canar), Sudan’s new nationwide fixed line operator, today confirmed a strategic multi-million dollar investment in FLAG Telecom’s FALCON terabit/s cable system. Following an official signing ceremony during the ITU World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Canar will now provide East Africa’s first landing station for FALCON at Port Sudan. Canar has also purchased capacity on the high-quality fibre optic cable. Today’s signing follows similar agreements with leading telecommunications operators in Bahrain, Egypt, India, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Qatar.
FALCON will be the first terabit/s cable system to land in Sudan. It is expected to quickly become a strategic asset of the country, enabling Canar to enhance the level and quality of services they are able to offer their customers and to provide the infrastructure to meet the increasing demand for roll-out of broadband services and E-commerce applications.
Mr. Saood Al Juneibi, Managing Director, Canar, commenting at today’s official singing ceremony, said: “Today’s signing demonstrates Canar’s on-going commitment to delivering high quality, advanced communication services to Sudan. FALCON will provide the international infrastructure needed for Sudan to leap several generations of technology and deliver a true 21st century network for our country and our customers. Port Sudan will be the first East Africa landing for this key regional asset, which will provide high-availability connectivity between Sudan and the key business centres and Internet Exchanges around the world.”
FALCON, a new high-capacity resilient loop cable system is being installed to provide multiple landings throughout the Gulf region, with submarine links stretching from the Middle East to Egypt in the west and, initially, to India in the east. Across India the FALCON system can interconnect seamlessly with India’s domestic networks, including Reliance’s 80,000 km high-speed domestic infrastructure, allowing customers to access major cities and towns. The FALCON system will also interconnect seamlessly with the existing FLAG Global Network allowing customers to access key business centres around the globe.
Walid Irshaid, President, Middle East and Africa, FLAG Telecom, said: “We are delighted to welcome Canar as a landing partner and for the FALCON cable and key customer on the system. FLAG is committed to meeting the global communications needs of its partners in the region and the formal signing of these agreements marks a milestone in our relationship with Canar. FALCON is designed to unlock the broadband opportunity in a region previously underserved by international connectivity, bringing a many-fold increase in capacity over existing regional links. It will enable Canar to roll out advanced communication services and with very high levels of network reliability.”
The FALCON system incorporates the Gulf region’s first self-healing submarine network ring, providing all countries connected to the high capacity cable with extremely reliable, high quality connectivity. It underlines the growing optimism in today’s telecommunications marketplace and provides the backbone to deliver advanced broadband services throughout the Middle East, North Africa and India, which have been traditionally underserved with high-capacity broadband connectivity. Branching units have been added along the FALCON cable route to allow additional countries to connect to the system as their communications needs continue to expand.
The FALCON network is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks, a leading turnkey provider of choice when designing and building complex submarine cable systems such as FALCON. It is being installed in simultaneous sections using several submarine cable laying ships and initial service is on schedule to commence by December 2005. FALCON will incorporate comprehensive protection mechanisms to ensure the highest level of network reliability.
FLAG’s cable network already spans the globe and the company has an acknowledged reputation for a centralised end-to-end network management underpinned by exceptional quality and service support.
About FLAG Telecom
FLAG Telecom, a member company of the Reliance Group, has 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 USA. FLAG also owns and operates a low latency global MPLS based IP network, which connects most of the world's principal international Internet exchanges. FLAG offers a focused range of global products, including global bandwidth, IP, Internet, Ethernet and Co-location services. In the first international acquisition by the Group, FLAG Telecom became a Reliance Group company on 12 January 2004. Recent news releases and further information are on FLAG Telecom's website at: www.flagtelecom.com.
About Reliance Infocomm
Reliance Infocomm Ltd., a Reliance group company, is India's largest private telecom service provider with a subscriber base of over 10 million. Reliance Infocomm has established a pan-India, high - capacity, integrated (wireless and wireline) and convergent (voice, data and video) digital network to offer services spanning the entire Infocomm value chain - infrastructure, services for enterprises and individuals, applications and consulting. The Reliance Group, founded by Shri Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest business house with total revenues of Rs 73,164 crore (US$16.7billion), cash profit of Rs 12,087 crore (US$2.8billion), net profit of Rs7,628 crore (US$1.7billion) and exports of Rs 25,532 crore (US$5.8billion). www.relianceinfo.com
About Canar Telecommunication Co.
Canar is a young and dynamic provider of communications services established in April 2005 in the name of Canar Telecommunication Co. Limited. Canar uses cutting edge technologies such as Next Generation Network (NGN) and Wireless Loop (WLL), our products and services including voice, data, internet and multi media services. Canar is in the forefront of operators being one of the few to deploy NGN as the base of the network and is one of the first to do so in Africa.
Forward-looking Statements
Statements contained in this Press Release that are not historical facts may be "forward-looking" statements. To identify these forward-looking statements look for words like "believes", "expects", "may", "will", "should", "seeks", "intends", "plans", "projects", "estimates", or "anticipates" and similar words and phrases. These, and all forward-looking statements, are based on current expectations and necessarily are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors which include, but are not limited to, our ability to achieve our objectives and to maintain quality, resilience and service support. We caution readers not to rely on forward-looking statements, and we disclaim any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
