Yemen Invests in Falcon

SANA'A, Yemen and LONDON -- Republic of Yemen's International Telecommunication Company (TeleYemen), today confirmed a strategic multi-million dollar investment in FLAG Telecom's FALCON terabit/s cable system. Following an official signing ceremony attended by His Excellency Engineer Abdulmalik S Al Moalimi, Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, the Republic of Yemen will now provide two landing stations for FALCON. TeleYemen has also purchased capacity on the high-quality fibreoptic cable. Today's signing follows similar agreements with leading telecommunications operators in Bahrain, Egypt, India, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

FALCON will be the first international cable system to land in the Republic of Yemen. It is expected to quickly become a strategic asset of the country, enabling customers in Yemen direct access to global telecommunications and Internet services for the first time and enabling TeleYemen to provide the infrastructure to meet the increasing demand for roll-out of broadband services and E-commerce applications. The Republic of Yemen is experiencing very fast economic growth, mainly driven by the oil and gas industries and tourism.

H.E. Engineer Abdulmalik S Al Moalimi, commenting at today's official singing ceremony, said: "Today's signing marks a significant investment in landing stations on the North and South coasts and in capacity on the region's new premier cable system. FALCON will provide the international infrastructure needed for TeleYemen to leap several generations of technology and deliver a true 21st century network for our country and our customers. By next year Yemen will be directly connected via high-quality fibreoptic capacity to the key business centres and Internet Exchanges around the world. The network diversity provided via the two landing stations at Al Hudaydah and Al Ghaidah together with the added protection of the FALCON loop system within the Gulf, will further ensure the resilience of our international communications for the future generations."

FALCON, a new high-capacity resilient loop cable system is being installed to provide multiple landings throughout the Gulf region, with submarine links stretching from the Middle East to Egypt in the west and, initially, to India in the east. Across India the FALCON system can interconnect seamlessly with India's domestic networks, including Reliance's 80,000 km high-speed domestic infrastructure, allowing customers to access major cities and towns.

Walid Irshaid, President, Middle East and Africa, FLAG Telecom, said: "We are delighted to welcome TeleYemen as a landing partner for the FALCON cable system. FLAG is committed to meeting the global communications needs of its partners in the region and the formal signing of these agreements marks another milestone in our relationship with TeleYemen. FALCON is designed to unlock the broadband opportunity in a region previously underserved by international connectivity, bringing a many-fold increase in capacity over existing regional links. It will enable TeleYemen to meet the forecast demand for advanced communication services and with very high levels of network reliability."

The FALCON system incorporates the Gulf region's first self-healing submarine network ring, providing all countries connected to the high capacity cable with extremely reliable, high quality connectivity. It underlines the growing optimism in today's telecommunications marketplace and provides the backbone to deliver advanced broadband services throughout the Middle East, Egypt and India, which have been traditionally underserved with high-capacity broadband connectivity. Branching units have been added along the FALCON cable route to allow additional countries to connect to the system as their communications needs continue to expand.

The FALCON network is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks, a leading turnkey provider of choice when designing and building complex submarine cable systems such as FALCON. It will be installed in simultaneous sections using several submarine cable laying ships and initial service will commence by the fourth quarter of 2005. FALCON will incorporate comprehensive protection mechanisms to ensure the highest level of network reliability.

FLAG's cable network already spans the globe and the company has an acknowledged reputation for a centralised end-to-end network management underpinned by exceptional quality and service support.

FLAG Telecom Group Ltd.