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MENA to position Egypt as central hub for traffic transit across Europe,
Middle East and Asia
Paris,October 22, 2007 — Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)
has signed a turnkey contract with Orascom Telecom to lay the Mediterranean Sea
segment of a new 3,850 km submarine cable network, named Middle East North
Africa (MENA). Positioning Egypt as a central hub for traffic transit across
Europe, Middle East and Asia, the new submarine network will provide an
added-value vehicle to support the increased broadband communications in the
Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
MENA will link Egypt, Italy and Saudi Arabia, delivering an ultimate capacity
of 5.76 Tbit/s that will greatly increase international and regional
connectivity. With completion scheduled by the first quarter of 2009, it will
allow businesses and consumers to benefit from enhanced capacity and
reliability to access innovative broadband services. Alcatel-Lucent will be
responsible for the turnkey rollout of the Egypt to Italy segment that will
have landing points in Alexandria (Egypt) and Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, in
Italy.
“MENA will enable improved international connectivity to support new,
high-speed services and brings us an important step closer to delivering the
much needed international bandwidth services to the Middle East and Asia
through Orascom Telecom’s several companies around the world,” said Naguib
Sawiris, CEO and Chairman of Orascom Telecom.
“With today’s market changes, operators have to address increased connectivity
requirements, while minimizing their operational costs and guaranteeing
performance continuity at the highest level possible,” said Olivier Picard,
President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Europe and South activities. “Our cost-effective
solutions enable our customers to enhance their network efficiency for
strengthened end-user satisfaction with easy-to-operate services and
applications.”
The Alcatel-Lucent submarine solution will be based on its 1620 Light Manager
next-generation DWDM submarine platform, and will also include cable and
submarine repeaters and branching units, providing direct connectivity to
landing stations. A comprehensive suite of professional services, including
permitting and project management, engineering, marine operation, and
installation testing and commissioning, is part of this turnkey project.
This new project further strengthens the long-lasting cooperation between
Alcatel-Lucent and Orascom Telecom, who have successfully partnered on the
implementation of several fixed and wireless communications projects in
different countries around the world.
About Orascom Telecom
Orascom Telecom is a leading international telecommunications company operating
GSM networks in seven high growth markets in the Middle East, Africa and South
Asia, having a total population under license of approximately 460 million with
an average mobile telephony penetration of approximately 33% as at 30th June
2007. Orascom Telecom operates GSM networks in Algeria ("OTA"),
Pakistan ("Mobilink"), Egypt ("Mobinil"), Tunisia
("Tunisiana"), Iraq ("Iraqna"), Bangladesh
("Banglalink"), and Zimbabwe ("Telecel Zimbabwe"). Orascom
Telecom had over 61 million subscribers as at June 2007. Orascom Telecom owns
19.3% of Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, a leading
telecommunication services provider operating in seven countries. Orascom
Telecom is traded on the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange under the symbol
(ORTE.CA, ORAT EY), and on the London Stock Exchange its GDR is traded under
the symbol (ORTEq.L, OTLD LI).
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