Business & Money | Sunday 22 March, 2015 12:00 am |

Ooredoo’s Wholesale Arm Takes Part in Global Undersea Cable Consortium; Signs New Agreement with PCCW Global for IPX Services; and Offers 4G LTE roaming services with BICS


Ooredoo Global Services (OGS), the wholesale arm of global telecommunications leader Ooredoo, the company has announced three major agreements that will extend the range of services and international support it can offer for customers around the world.

OGS was established in 2014 to offer a single point of contact for wholesale carriers looking to access the global networks of Ooredoo’s operating companies, and the company continues to extend its range of international partnerships to build its position as a leading exchange for voice, capacity and roaming services.

Yousuf Abdulla Al-Kubaisi, CEO, OGS said: “Ooredoo Global Services continues to forge ahead with its strategy to become the premium partner for wholesale carriers looking for connectivity in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia. Over the last week, we have signed an agreement to manage a global undersea cable for Ooredoo, and extended our partnerships with two leading companies in order to offer the latest and best roaming and IP services.”

During the 2015 Capacity Middle East event in Dubai last week, the company confirmed its participation as a landing party for one of the world’s largest planned consortium cable projects. The SMW5 Global Consortium Cable, which will land in Qatar and Oman, will follow a new high speed undersea route linking the Middle East with South East Asia and Western Europe and provide an important upgrade for international networks, enhancing Internet speeds, enabling high quality voice services and improving resilience for people and companies around the globe.

The completion of the cable will provide additional protection and diversity to the world’s heavily-congested cable systems, delivering greater speeds and ensuring that companies and individuals suffer less from bottlenecks or disruption caused by cable breaks. Ooredoo Global Services will manage the landing stations on behalf of Ooredoo.

In addition, Ooredoo Global Services announced a new agreement with BICS, which will enable customers to enjoy 4G data roaming services when they travel. Using BICS’ IPX platform, Ooredoo will be able to offer LTE roaming services for customers travelling to more than 75 countries, including major markets in EMEA, North America and APAC.
Ooredoo Global Services also signed an agreement with PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, to provide PCCW Global customers with multiple enhanced IPX (IP eXchange) and MPLS services when they connect with Qatar’s thriving commercial service sector.
The interconnect agreement also enables the two companies to collaborate on providing services like VoIPX, GRX, Diameter, HD calling, HD video conferencing, Ethernet, cloud and SDN for carriers and multinational customers.
IPX provides a unified network platform for connecting IP services between mobile and fixed networks, while MPLS has become the de facto standard technology used for the transport of these services.
Ooredoo Global Services and PCCW Global are already collaborating as founder members of the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) subsea cable system, scheduled for completion in 2016. Supporting PCCW Global’s plans to deliver services into Africa and the Middle East, AAE-1 is one of the largest consortium cable projects currently under way, extending some 25,000 kilometres.
Yousuf Al-Kubaisi concluded: “Ooredoo sits at the heart of global partnerships and networks that are enabling our markets to become some of the best-connected in the world. With Ooredoo Global Services, we will be able to provide the highest level of management and support for carriers and customers looking to access these networks – and ensure incredible value for all.”

About Ooredoo Global Services -
Ooredoo Global Services (OGS), Ooredoo’s wholesale arm, provides a world-class network that serves as a global exchange for voice, capacity and roaming traffic. It offers wholesale and carrier customers one of the largest Internet peering networks in the Middle East and is interconnected with more than 100 operators, including many of the largest in the world. Ooredoo continues to forge new partnerships with regional and global leaders to provide a higher level of service and better experience for all our customers.

About Ooredoo
Ooredoo is a leading international communications company delivering mobile, fixed, broadband internet and corporate managed services tailored to the needs of consumers and businesses across markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia. As a community-focused company, Ooredoo is guided by its vision of enriching people’s lives and its belief that it can stimulate human growth by leveraging communications to help people achieve their full potential. Ooredoo has a presence in markets such as Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Palestine, the Maldives, Myanmar and Indonesia. The company was named “Best Mobile Operator of the Year” at the World Communication Awards 2013.

The company reported revenues of US$9.1 billion in 2014 and had a consolidated global customer base of more than 107 million people as of 31 December 2014. Ooredoo’s shares are listed on the Qatar Exchange and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.

Twitter: @Ooredoo
Facebook: facebook.com/ooredoogroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/ooredoo
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ooredoogroup