“ With Omantel in Muscat we ’ re going to be able to offer 160 milliseconds of latency between Frankfurt and Singapore ”
— Sohail Qadir , VP , Wholesale Business Unit , Omantel
The latest findings from the Global Interconnection Index predicts that enterprise consumption of interconnection bandwidth will grow at a CAGR of 45 % across the EMEA region by 2023 . Equinix and Omantel ’ s joint venture is poised to elevate connectivity in the region to a revolutionary degree .
First opened in early October this year , MC1 is a state-of-the-art IBX , strategically positioned to make use of Omantel ’ s extensive subsea cable network . Omantel currently has investments in more than 20 subsea cable systems , which connect to five landing stations in Oman and one in France , making Omantel the first GCC telecom operator to have a subsea landing station in Europe .
“ Omantel has 14 subsea cables landing in Oman . The Sultanate also has another operator , which has another two cables landing in the country . All of these subsea cables now have access into MC1 , making for 16 subsea networks in one data centre ,” says Qadir , adding that “ There is no other place with that level of connectivity in this region . Even in the bigger data centres in Europe , it would be very rare to see something like this .”
The initial success of MC1 has already garnered significant interest in the project . Qadir notes that the venture is currently working on five additional projects to bring even more connectivity to MC1 . “ There ’ s a point-to-point link between Perth in Australia and Oman , which will land in MC1 and go live towards the end of 2021 . It is called the Oman Australia Cable ( OAC ) and will be one of the longest direct subsea cables in the world . We are also working with Google and Telecom Italia Sparkle on a cable system called Blue-Raman , which will also land in MC1 , just to name a few ,” says Qadir . “ Moreover we are planning to extend the GCCIA cable to MC1 , which is an alternative terrestrial path connecting the GCC countries ”, he added . Qadir explains that the goal is to
145 datacentremagazine . com