Middle Eastern telcos collaborate for Regional Cable Network project

Turkcell has announced the signing of a multi-operator agreement which will initiate the Regional Cable Network (RCN) project in the Middle East. In addition to Turkcell and Turkcell’s wholly owned subsidiary Superonline, the other members of the consortium are Etisalat (UAE), Mobily (Saudi Arabia), Jordan Telecom, Mada-Zain Consortium (Jordan) and Syria Telecommunications Estiablishment. The project involves the laying of a 7,750km fibre-optic cable line starting in the UAE and passing through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria before reaching Turkey. The infrastructure will intersect in five cities and has the ability to provide capacity of 12.8Tbps. It is expected to be operational by the second half of 2011.