State-owned Telecom Egypt (TE) said on Monday it had signed an agreement to provide Google Inc. with a first-of-its-kind layer three meshed system on multiple of its redundant and resilient Egypt-crossing network infrastructure. Under the agreement, Google will also be provided with capacity to Europe on Telecom Egypt's Mediterranean submarine cable, TE North. The project is expected to go live in the first half of 2021, according to Telecom Egypt statement. This mesh project connects several cable landing stations in the Red and Mediterranean Seas over diverse routes and will increase the reliability of Google's international transit traffic, providing an elevated level of robustness, TE said. TE's network can reroute traffic as needed in less than 50 milliseconds, and will also offer high quality availability features with an SLA portal, the statement added. "It is our sincere pleasure to work with Google and support its mission to increase the reliability of its traffic regionally." Adel Hamed, TE's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said. "This agreement comes in line with our strategy to solidify Egypt's position as an eminent digital hub that connects continents using Telecom Egypt's resilient, multi-routed, and low-latency mesh network that spans the Mediterranean Sea, crosses Egypt, and extends to Singapore." Seif Mounib, TE's VP for International and Wholesale, said: "Despite the hardships brought about by the global pandemic in 2020, we succeeded to enhance our international IP transit infrastructure, to better serve our global customers." This year, TE built two landing stations connected over diverse terrestrial routes, "bringing the total to 10 stations in the Red and Mediterranean Seas, and 10 terrestrial crossing routes across Egypt." Mounib added. Mark Sokol, Senior Director of EMEA Infrastructure at Google Cloud, said the agreement will enhance "Google's global network resilience via Egypt and we look forward to a continued mutually beneficial engagement." Meanwhile, Hisham El Nazer, Google Egypt's Country Manager, said: "With internet penetration accelerating rapidly in Egypt, enhancing the capacity of transit traffic will unlock significant usage potential. We thrive to offer our users a better experience through improved connectivity in Egypt, and across the globe." According to the statement, Telecom Egypt offers the global telecom community access to abundant international capacities with the lowest latency and the shortest, most efficient protected path from Africa and Asia to Europe. It builds on Egypt's distinctive geography at the heart of the world, and Telecom Egypt's continuous and extensive network revamps. The Egyptian company's advanced infrastructure and its capabilities has led it to become the partner-of-choice for many international telecom players over the years. "Additionally, Telecom Egypt is working on multiple layers of its infrastructure diversity, such as establishing new subsea landing stations and crossing routes as well as investing in new subsea systems and solutions that will cater for the wave of global demand for international capacities." the statement read. "To maintain the high level of service availability, Telecom Egypt has developed its mesh network solutions that span the Mediterranean Sea, cross Egypt, and extend all the way to Singapore."
