UAE incumbent operator etisalat has announced a deal with Kuwaiti IT services firm Tawasul Telecom to provide its business customers in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) access to secure, high-bandwidth data services through the Tawasul network, a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network which provides the backbone for data services for companies, such as IP-based virtual private networking (IP VPN).