Telecom Egypt signed deals enabling the Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) subsea cable system to cross Egypt through new diversified terrestrial routes between Zafarana and Abou Talat cable landing stations. Telecom Egypt will provide PEACE with brand new state of the art landing facilities. The total value of the agreement amounts to $45 million over the lifetime of the cable. In addition, PEACE will be granted an additional fiber pair to its redundant cross Egypt routes to accommodate PEACE extensive demand to Europe with a total value of US$20 million. China-based HENGTONG OPTIC-ELECTRIC, which is a backer of PEACE, has also agreed to provide Telecom Egypt with fiber optic cables of different cores based on competitive pricing. This cabling will be used in Telecom Egypt's strategic plans for fiber deployment inside Egypt. PEACE is a 12,000 km long cable system with landings in Pakistan, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and France. Adel Hamed, Telecom Egypt's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer said: "I am very pleased with the signing of the landing party and crossing agreement as this marks the addition of another cable system to Telecom Egypt's huge network of submarine cables crossing Egypt exhibiting clearly that Egypt is the ideal digital route and partner of choice for international traffic from the East to the West.” “Telecom Egypt boasts several differentiation factors in the submarine cable industry that will enable it to realize its vision to become a regional and African digital hub for content providers. These include Egypt's premium geographic location and the company's efforts in continuously modernizing and expanding its international network through the addition of new landing stations and the establishment of highly reliable diversified crossing routes." Source: Converge! Network Digest
