Omantel crowned Middle East Best Regional Operator, Best Regional Data Centre Operator

MUSCAT: Omantel has emerged winner in two categories at the CC-Global Awards 2022, presented by the Carrier Community, which is one of the most active and prestigious forums in the wholesale industry. The awards were recently presented in Berlin.

Omantel won in the Middle East Best Regional Operator and Best Regional Data Centre Operator categories, reiterating its regional wholesale prominence and capabilities that have contributed to making Oman a strategic point in the global communications domain.

Sohail Qadir, Vice President of Wholesale at Omantel, said, “Omantel has been consistently winning at the CC Global Awards, which is a remarkable achievement. We thank the Carrier Community for recognising Omantel’s efforts to push the boundaries of telecommunications and ICT services in Oman, the Mena region and beyond. Winning these awards proves to us that we are on the right path, as they are an encouragement to each milestone we reach. Omantel’s role as the leader and enabler of digital transformation and a facilitator of fast-paced global communication networks will only grow in the time to come. These awards keep fuelling our ambitious journey.”

Wida Schmidt, the Co-Founder of the Carrier Community commented, “We had a successful awards ceremony with a significantly increased participation this year. This means that the competition was even higher this time and our award judging panel, formed by reputable and neutral industry experts, had the challenging task to decide on the winners. Omantel emerged as the winner in two categories, which demonstrates its retained leadership in the Mena region and reflects its successful journey of growth and innovation. The company was named the Middle East Best Regional Operator for the third year in a row and recognised for changing the wholesale landscape in the region through global connectivity investments and tech services offerings.”

Omantel, beyond its role of being the leading integrated telecom service provider in the Sultanate, was recognised for enabling wholesale services in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe resulting in successfully driving a transformation unseen elsewhere in the region. By serving 80% of the internet from the global content locally hosted in Oman, Omantel has showcased how it has been attracting and hosting key international content providers and hyperscalers to serve better internet experience to the Sultanate of Oman and the whole region. Omantel has investments in more than 20 subsea cable systems reaching 120 locations around the world. Omantel has introduced a number of new key global wholesale projects recently including the partnership with SUBCO to facilitate the landing of the OmanAustralia Subsea Cable (OAC) in Barka, one of the longest ever direct subsea cables stretching for around 10,000 km from Perth to Muscat, that offers an express route linking Australia and the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region and promises a secure, diverse and lowlatency connectivity between the two continents. Globally, Omantel’s network of submarine fibre spans over 114,000km (for operational cables originating from Oman to the world).

Being recognised as the Best Regional Data Centre Operator category cements Omantel as the regional leader from the wholesale perspective. The award recognises the benefits of Omantel’s joint venture with Equinix to establish MC1 in Muscat, the first carrierneutral data centre in the MENA region, which has turned the region into the new communication hub. Followed by SN1, the newly announced state-of-the-art data centre in Salalah, also in partnership with Equinix.

The MC1 data centre is where carriers, content providers, and cloud providers can co-locate critical IT infrastructure. It leverages Oman’s geographic advantage at the wholesale hub in the region with a solid strategy to enable its customers and partners to deliver their services with the best possible end-user experience.

After its establishment, the SN1 data centre will develop to be a key interconnectivity point for traffic flows between Asia, Europe, and Africa. It will contribute to making Salalah the newest wholesale hub in the regional telecom arena.

By shortening the length and routes of many highly strategic and important subsea cables in the region, the new SN1 facility will transform the landscape of global traffic flows by creating a much more cost-effective route to connect businesses to the Middle East. The new data centre will also offer direct fibre connectivity to MC1.

Through its Wholesale Business Unit, Omantel has been serving local and international telecom operators, by providing them with advanced telecom solutions in terms of interconnection, internet access, connectivity, infrastructure, carrier, roaming, and more. Omantel’s Wholesale has undergone an extraordinary transformation journey over the last decade, from being a party dependent on other regional wholesale providers for fulfilling its requirements to becoming a main wholesale provider serving telecom operators and content providers locally, regionally, and globally.

Moreover, Omantel introduced the Dynamic Global Wholesale Integration Programme that is continuously evolving to cover the future needs of the company and its clients through constant updates and enhancements to remain on par with the global developments and lead the telecom scene in the region and beyond.*