Middle East to Get New Subsea CableMiddle East to Get New Subsea Cable

Turkcell subsidiary and six other operators combine on fiber link between UAE and Istanbul

December 22, 2010

1 Min Read

ISTANBUL -- Turkcell (NYSE: TKC, ISE: TCELL), the leading communications and technology company in Turkey, announced today that a consortium of seven operators including Turkcell's 100% subsidiary, Superonline, together with Etisalat (UAE), Mobily (Saudi Arabia), Jordan Telecom, Mada-Zain Consortium (Jordan), and Syria Telecommunications Establishment (Syria) have signed an agreement which will initiate the Regional Cable Network ("RCN") Project.

Starting from Fujairah (United Arab Emirates) and passing through Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Amman (Jordan), Tartous (Syria) and reaching Istanbul (Turkey), the RCN Project's fiber optic cable line is expected to cover the entire Gulf region in the Middle East for the first time and be operational as of the second half of 2011. Totaling 7,750 km with its round-trip routes, the RCN Project is expected to become the region's longest terrestrial fiber infrastructure between Fujairah, one of the busiest nodes for submarine fiber cables, and the West.

The RCN project offers the region an alternative internet infrastructure with a high-capacity, far more economical structure (compared to the submarine systems) which is diversified into two separate routes. This infrastructure, which will cross five countries and intersect in five cities has the ability to provide capacity of 12.8 Terabits per second.

The RCN project is designed to reach Europe through more than 15 access points readily available on the Bulgarian border and to initially activate 2.4 Terabit per second capacity along the two different routes which the fiber optic cables will follow.

Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. (NYSE: TKC)

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