Retelit joins the AAE-1 consortium for the construction of the latest generation undersea cable system to connect Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia as far as Hong Kong
17 September 2014News & Events
Retelit becomes a global operator, joining the international AAE-1 (Asia Africa Europe 1) consortium together with some of the major telecommunications operators of the three continents, signing an agreement for the construction and the maintenance of the first high capacity and low latency undersea cable in the world between the Mediterranean and Hong Kong.
The AAE-1 system will connect Hong Kong, Djibouti, UAE, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Oman, Qatar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France using the 100 Gigabits per second technology. The cable will have an overall capacity of 40 Terabits and less latency than the current undersea cables between Asia and Europe. With an innovative design, AAE-1 will be the first undersea system to connect East Asia and Europe with express fiber paths without stop-over in different intermediate landing stations, thanks to the optical add drop multiplexer (OADM) technology.
Retelit will provide to AAE-1 the connection with Italy as one of the gateways to Europe thanks to the construction of a Landing Station in Bari and the expansion of its own terrestrial network to Frankfurt, Marseilles and London. Thanks to this operation, of high strategic value, the Group executes the first phase of the previously announced international expansion. The project will include the expansion of the infrastructure backbones owned by the Group in Italy to the main European cities, thus making Retelit one of the most important Mediterranean gateways between Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
The agreements have been signed on 16th September 2014 in Bangkok (Thailand), in the presence of all consortium members, by Giuseppe Sini, Retelit Chief Commercial Officer and Troy LI, Director of Global Network China Unicom and AAE-1 Consortium Chairman.
