Mobily and six telecom operators from five countries collaborate on Regional Cable Network ("RCN") Project

USD 500 million worth of investment will enable a new level of connectivity between East and West and Internet access for 2 billion people

Seven operators, including Superonline, a Turkcell Group company, from Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria today announced that they are building the Middle East's longest redundant terrestrial communications infrastructure along a 7,750 kilometer round trip route. The RCN project will extend from the city of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul in Turkey and then to Europe and will serve as a gateway to the Internet for 2 billion people.

The RCN project was signed by the seven telecom operators during a ceremony held today in Ankara. The event was attended by the Minister of Transport and Communications Binali Yıldırım, RCN Project Interim Consortium Chairman Ali Amiri, the CEO's of the founder members of the Consortium; including Turkcell CEO Süreyya Ciliv, Mobily COO Mr. Abdulaziz Altamami, Jordan Telecom Group CEO Mrs. Nayla Khawam, Mada Group Managing Director Charles Hage , Syrian Telecommunications Establishment Director General Nazem Bahsas and Superonline CEO Murat Erkan.

Starting from Fujairah (United Arab Emirates) and passing through Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Amman (Jordan), Tartous (Syria) and reaching Istanbul (Turkey), the RCN project's fiber optic cable line will cover the entire Gulf region in the Middle East for the first time through a uniform infrastructure. 3,875 km in radial length and totaling 7,750 km with its round trip routes, the RCN project will become the region's longest redundant terrestrial fiber infrastructure between Fujairah, one of the busiest nodes for submarine and fiber cables, and the West.

The Chief Operating Officer Mr. Abdulaziz Altamami, Mobily, "Our participation in the regional cable network comes as part of our commitment to contribute to the regional and global connectivity by expanding the reach of our robust, reliable and trusted Saudi National Fiberoptic Network through having multiple routes available for data communication traffic originating from inside the Kingdom or transiting from the networks of other operators".

Addressing the ceremonial assembly, Consortium Chairman Ali Amiri described the RCN as being unmatched in terms of speed, quality, ease of upgrade, redundancy, and reliability. Recalling that the dual fiber lines would cross five countries and intersect in five cities, Amiri stated that this infrastructure has the ability to provide the tremendous capacity of 12,8 terabits per second.

Envisaged to satisfy the Internet demand in the countries involved and to become the preferred route for transit traffic across all the countries it passes through, this Project will increase speeds throughout the region.