Wholesale and Capacity

Barcelona, 2 March 2022: Telecom Egypt, Egypt’s first integrated telecom operator and one of the largest subsea cables operators in the region, and AFR-IX Telecom, a Barcelona-based infrastructure and telecom operator, signed a landing party agreement for the landing of the largest Mediterranean submarine cable system, Medusa, in Egypt. The agreement was signed during the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona by the Managing Director and CEO of Telecom Egypt, Mr. Adel Hamed and Norman Albi, CEO of AFR-IX Telecom and Medusa.

Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia, previously known as the Global Partnership for Ethiopia who received the sole license to operate telecom services in Ethiopia, has invested $100 million in their first data center in the country’s capital.

Zain KSA’s board of directors has approved the binding offer submitted by the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) led consortium to acquire a 80% majority stake in the telco’s 8,069 passive tower infrastructure for a value of SAR 3.026 billion (USD 807 million).

International and domestic communications were severed due to the damage sustained by the submarine cables connecting Tonga to the rest of the world.

stc has announced the inauguration of a new data center in the Qassim region, on their social media pages.

Console Connect has extended its collaboration with NaiTel, the telecom arm of Aqaba Digital Hub, to enable on-demand global connectivity access in the Middle East.

TAWAL, the leading Saudi ICT infrastructure company and one of stc Group subsidiaries, has announced its entry into Pakistan’s market via a full acquisition of Awal Telecom. The move, which is TAWAL’s first foray outside Saudi Arabia, is an initial step in the company’s international expansion roadmap.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), a global cloud, connectivity and content enabler, is deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme, to increase GBI’s smart network capacity and performance. This upgrade will help GBI meet the demanding internet traffic requirements between the gulf cooperation council (GCC) countries, Europe and India. This will also help prepare the region for major upcoming sporting events – including the world’s largest football competition – in Qatar and the wider region.

On the sideline of LEAP, stc announced the launch of its initiative to establish a major digital hub “MENA Hub” for the Middle East and North Africa with an investment of $1 billion. This ensures the leading position of KSA across the ICT sector and stc’s role as leading player in the region, aiming to enable the Kingdom's economy growth and gross domestic product.

Dubai Internet City, the region’s largest hub for technology companies and talent, has announced a deal with Khazna Data Centers, one of the largest wholesale data center providers in MENA, to establish two state-of-the-art data centers.