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TE North increases the service footprint of the existing TE Transit Corridor, by extending its transit services in the Mediterranean. Additionally TE North aims to service the Egyptian National market using this 'build strategy' to lower the cost point of the TE group retail internet arm. TE North is expected to require nearly $140m of capex and to be ready for service by the first half of 2009.
Akil Beshir, Chairman & CEO of TE stated that:
'TE North complements our tradition in serving the submarine cable systems to connect nearly 2 billion people in Asia to the Western Hemisphere. We take this tradition very seriously and continue to enhance the TE Transit Corridor, both through the unique terrain of Egypt and also through our experts who built this route and witnessed the several submarine cable crossings through it. TE North will offer flavours of bulk capacity and physical transport through various service offerings that enables TE North customers to maintain their operational and strategic integrity. The supporting isolated business plan is not the only part of the story. Other enhanced services to content players, data centres and call centres further improve this plan and extend TE service foot print into more managed services.'
SEACOM is an infrastructure investment group which will construct a 15,000 km submarine cable system that connects South Africa, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya to India and to the new TE cable station in Ras Sidr, Egypt near Suez. From here, TE will land the SEA Cable System and SEACOM will own a system within TE North cable system permitting the full SEACOM system to reach France seamlessly. SEACOM's collaboration with TE and the TE North system permits it to complete its structure to connect South Africa and East Africa directly to Asia and Europe.
Brian Herlihy, President of SEACOM, Ltd. stated, 'The experience in the submarine cable industry that TE brings to this solution and the ability to transit traffic directly to France, makes this the best solution for SEACOM. This solution permits SEACOM to offer its customers capacity from a PoP in a major African city to the PoP in Marseilles all on one system.' TE and SEACOM estimate that their respective systems will be ready for service by the first half of 2009.
VSNL, a leading communications solutions provider and member of the Tata Group, is also engaging with TE North in a system within a system to offer the company's global customers tier-one connectivity from Ras Sidr to France.
Mohamed Elnawawy, VP of International, Wholesale and Regulatory Affairs at TE stated 'TE North is the first system within a system implementation on the very popular Northern Egypt based Mediterranean crossing route, the industry continues to look for innovative submarine cable efficiencies similar to the successful consortium structures. As such, TE North density achieves even more favourable build economics. The current deals show the different addressable geographies TE can serve.
SEACOM and VSNL engage with TE North to service the South and East Africa Markets as well as the Indian Markets respectively. The SEACOM and VSNL deals enable TE North business case, and are worth approximately US$90M, accounting for approximately 25% of TE North capacity. Those contracts are expected to be the first in a series of contracts that TE expects to enter into in relation to its TE North Submarine Cable System as well as the TE Transit Corridor.'
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Posted by Anne-Birte Stensgaard, Senior News Editor
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