NEW INTERCONNECTION HUB WILL SUPPORT CONTENT TRAFFIC GROWTH IN MENA REGION
MUSCAT: Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) and Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX), the global interconnection and data centre company, have entered into a joint venture to deliver data centre and interconnection services to customers in the Middle East through the development of a new networkdense data centre that will be located in Barka. This joint venture will establish the first world-class, carrierneutral hub in Oman where carriers, content providers and cloud providers colocate critical IT infrastructure.
Oman is strategically positioned between Asia, Africa and Europe, and the new data centre will create a regional interconnection hub with ultra-low latencies between global business markets. The new data centre will benefit from the investments by Omantel in connectivity to multiple strategic subsea cable systems throughout the region and world. Once complete, the data centre in Oman will be a part of Platform Equinix™ which is comprised of 200 data centres globally and provide access to business ecosystems made up of +2,900 cloud providers, +1,700 network providers and +800 content and digital media providers worldwide. This enables companies to accelerate business performance and is aligned with Omantel’s vision for delivering quality content and high-performance applications with exceptional user experience.
Under the agreement, Omantel and Equinix are the two equal shareholders. Equinix will operate this new data centre in full, which will include 18,600 square feet of colocation space and approximately 750 cabinets at full build. The first phase of the threephase build will include 250 cabinets and is expected to be completed and open for business by Q2 2019.
Talal al Mamari, CEO, Omantel, said, “We are excited to work with Equinix on this project and accelerate how users experience cloud, content and next-gen communications. Today, data centreer infrastructure sits at the heart of global ICT and enables all of us to enjoy the cloud-based apps and services we use every day. The planned data centre with Equinix in Oman represents a massive step forward for Oman and the Middle Eastern ICT markets. Working on this project will allow both companies to bring together their strong assets and enable a new era of telecommunications both locally and globally. Such partnership will further enhance Oman’s competitiveness in the global digital economy and trade.”
Eric Schwartz, President, EMEA, Equinix said, “We see significant potential for Oman as a market generally and, in particular, supporting cable landing station (CLS ) requirements as subsea cable momentum accelerates. It’s all about meeting the growing need for interconnection — private data exchange between businesses. In the digital age, companies need to reach everywhere, interconnect everyone and integrate everything, and they need to do it out at the digital edge, where commerce, population centres and digital ecosystems meet. Our joint venture with Omantel will do exactly that.”
Up to date, Omantel provides cable landings and connectivity to more than 120 cities across the world. It has investments in 20 subsea cable systems and leverages six diverse landing stations in Oman and another in France. Additionally, Omantel is an investor in AAE-1 consortium, one of the largest and high-capacity connections between Asia, Africa and Europe. Omantel has also invested in multiple regional and international cables including Europe India Gateway (EIG), Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG), Gulf to Africa (G2A), and Silk Route Gateway-1 (SRG-1), and many more. As a result, Omantel will be able to offer a redundant and unique latency of 160ms between Frankfurt and Singapore, two of the world’s main capacity hubs accessible directly from within the new data centre in Oman.
Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world’s leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most-interconnected data centres. In 52 markets across five continents, Equinix is where companies come together to realise new opportunities and accelerate their business, IT and cloud strategies.