Network neutral interconnection company ancotel has announced that its data centre in Frankfurt, Germany has been selected by Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) as one of three terrestrial landing stations for the Europe-Persia Gateway (EPEG) in Western Europe. The EPEG fibre cable, which is currently scheduled for completion in May 2012, will provide an alternative, more direct and robust connectivity solution linking Western Europe directly to the Gulf region. The cable starts in Barka, Oman as a submarine system and continues on a terrestrial path to Western Europe where it will terminate in Frankfurt. With the EPEG system landing at Frankfurt-based ancotel’s interconnection facility, companies from the Gulf region will gain access to one of the largest aggregation network hubs in Europe. ‘Until now, the entire Gulf region has been fed by sea-based systems that have not offered diverse connectivity resulting in extensive outages throughout the region when severed,’ commented ancotel’s vice president, Frank Orlowski, adding: ‘Global and regional governments agree that there is a direct link between the economic development of a region and the robustness of the telecommunications infrastructure available. EPEG will play a vital role for the future development of the region and ancotel is proud to be a part of this project.’
Development of the EPEG cable system is being carried out by a consortium of four international telecoms companies, namely: Oman’s incumbent fixed line operator Omantel; Iran-based Telecommunications Infrastructure Company (TIC); UK-based CWW; and Russian carrier Rostelecom. When completed, it will have an initial capacity of 540Gbps with design capacity up to 3.2Tbps.