STC chairs SEA ME WE 4 meeting

Saudi NewsJan 06, 2014

STC hosts the meeting of the higher management committee of investors and key founders of SEA ME WE 4 to be held in Jeddah in the period from 07 to 09 of January 2014. The meeting will be attended by CEOs and representatives of 16 world telecom companies representing 15 countries contributing to the SEA ME WE cable. Participant Companies include: American Telecom (Verizon), Telecom Italia (Sparkle), France Telecom (Orange), Egypt Telecom, Tunisia Telecom, Algeria Telecom, Singapore Telecom, Malaysia Telecom, Thai Telecom, Bangladesh Telecom, India Telecom (Bharti), Indian Telecom Co. (TATA), Sri Lanka Telecom, Pakistan Telecom, Emirate Telecom, and STC which will chair the consortium management committee and the meeting. SEA ME WE cable is the largest and most successful submarine cable as it makes the most important means and the backbone of internet and world telecom service traffic transmission between South East Asia, Indian Peninsula, Middle East and West Europe. The cable is about 20,000 kilometers long having 16 stations -five of which are main drop stations- in 14 countries. The capacities available to SEA ME WE cable after the new extension reach about 8 terabyte/s the fact that gives participant companies strategic benefits to meet the increasing growth in capacities. STC terminal station in Jeddah is one of the key terminal stations of this cable (full drop station) among the five stations. It is to be noted that STC owns now three submarine cable terminal stations in the western and eastern regions linking the most important continental and regional cables passing the region. The meeting will discuss the present situation and future expansions as well as technical, commercial and operational arrangements in the light of increasing demand for international broadband services particularly those requiring large capacities such as internet and data services, especially the new expansion (Expansion 4) will use the most recent technologies that allow for bigger capacities of 100 GB/s on each optical transmission tool rather than 40Gb/s used in the previous expansion (Expansion 3). On this occasion, the Chairman and Managing Director of STC Group, Engineer Abdulaziz AL Sugair, said STC will continue, along with its world partners, investing in the international infrastructure to ensure achievement of the Kingdom's seniority in telecommunications and provision of modern world transmission means at the highest quality standards of international services in the light of the unprecedented growth Saudi Arabia is witnessing in broadband and internet services. The most important of these are STC FTTH network services for home and business sectors and the 4G mobile network services (LTE). It is worth mentioning that STC is the leading telecom company in the Middle East and North Africa that serves the area with international interface services via its world network which is the largest and most important in the region. The regional leadership achieved by STC was a result of deliberate strategic investments in submarine cables that depend on the most recent fiber optic technologies which are the most important and biggest and best means of internet and international data transmission worldwide.



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