ETIHAD Etisalat (Mobily) announced the success of dropping a high-capacity submarine cable (Asia - Africa - Europe - I) in Jeddah, whereas it is 25 thousand kilometers and will connect Far East countries to Europe through the Middle East and Africa. Minister of Communications and Technology Dr. Mohammed Bin Ibrahim Al-Suwaiyel was present at ceremony of launching submarine cable, including Dr. Deif Allah Bin Ahmed Al-Zahrani, Vice Governor of the Communications and Information Technology Commission for competition and legal affairs; and CEO of Mobily Ahmed Farrukh, as well as some executive officers in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Mobily. Ahmed Farrukh extended his thanks and gratitude to Dr. Mohammed Al-Suwaiyel for his presence to this occasion which confirms the latter's keenness to support companies in order to develop its infrastructure, which will contribute to the development of telecommunications and information technology sector. The CEO noted that the success of Mobily in signing agreement of submarine cable project with a number of world leader operators is another leap toward success of Mobily in favor of the Kingdom so as to further improve of infrastructure of the communication network in the Kingdom and by increasing the capacities of Internet and expansion of the scope of informational exchange and communications traffic between the countries, which will contribute directly to increasing Internet speeds for users also will meet the growing demand for various telecommunication services and data to Mobily customers in particular and neighboring countries in general which is consistent with the Kingdom "Vision 2030". Eng. Mazied Al-Harbi, executive officer of technology at Mobily, showed a presentation of the submarine cable, its characteristics, the importance of the Kingdom's location and its role as a link of building this submarine cable, where the cable extends for a distance of 25 thousand kilometers and connects the Far East countries starting from Hong Kong, through the countries of strategic East Asia such as Malaysia and Thailand then linking them to India and Pakistan through the Arab Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Oman), next the cable passes the countries of Africa (Djibouti, Egypt) reaching Europe (Greece, Italy, and France) with minimum possible delay and high transfer capacities up to more than 40 terabits per second which will contribute significantly to the growth of the business in states that pass by. Al-Harbi said submarine cable AAE-1 is a high-quality specifications and longest fiber-optic cables in the world noting that the cable is extended in the bottom of seas and oceans at different path from the existing cables in order to avoid breakdowns duplication and then link it afterwards to data center for each operator in each country to facilitate the exchange of various communication services, whether voice or data transmission services. He explained that the choice of Jeddah to be the spot of dropping submarine cable is because of ithe vitality of its geographical location as well as it is gate of the Two Holy Mosques. Submarine cable has been dropped at Mobily data center in Jeddah and then was linked to all the company's data centers which is deployed in some of kingdom cities. A proportion of 80 to 90 percent of communications traffic and data transfer between the countries are directly conducted through the vital and strategic cables. The new submarine cable AAE1 is composed of the latest range of different chemical and mechanical layers which are specifically designed to play an important role to protect them from the dangers of cuts that occur to submarine cables from external influences during its long existence in the bottom of seas and oceans which negatively affect the communications traffic and data transfer.
