Omantel reaffirms commitment to boost 'ocean' economy

Business Tuesday 12/February/2019 15:39 PM
By: Times News Service
Omantel reaffirms commitment to boost 'ocean' economy

Muscat: With an investment in 20 international submarine networks that serve more than five billion of the world’s population, Omantel reaffirms its commitment to bolster the country’s blue economy, in line with Government’s efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country.
“Omantel works hand in hand with all stakeholders locally and around the globe to strengthen investments in Oman’s ocean economy; we have established joint ventures to offer ICT and IoT services at various sea ports in the country," Eng. Baha Al Lawati, General Manager of Omantel’s Carrier & Roaming Services, said on the sidelines of the ‘Ocean Economy & Future Technology Conference’ inauguration last Monday.
"Additionally, the successful landing of the Asia Africa Europe-1 (AAE-1) cable system in the French city of Marseille has provided us direct access to various data centres in Europewhich improves latency, broaden access to contents and ultimately improve our customer’s experience,” he added.
“Our partnership with Equinix — world's largest data centres and co-location provider — to build the first world-class carrier-neutral data centre in Oman, is among those significant achievements which support our vision to build and enrich totally connected community," he said.
"We are proud to build on the Sultanate’s pivotal historic role in linking east to west and we will continue to lead the future with confidence and innovation to further excel in this domain,” he added.
Till date, Omantel has invested in 20 submarine cables that land in 120 cities located in 52 countries. This success has paved the way for significant ICT achievements that has turned the Sultanate into a data hub at the nexus of Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Europe, explains Al Lawati.
Al Lawati also added, “With Oman’s strategic geographical location and our substantial investments in submarine cables while being the premier telecom provider in the country, we managed to attract some of the world largest content providers and cloud giants to host their contents in Oman and use it as a base to serve their users in Oman, the region and beyond.”
Omantel is a strategic partner in Ocean Economy & Future Technology Conference. The three-day event touches upon the trends that are forming the future Ocean Economy, including disruptive and oceanology, concepts and international case studies. The conference examines future ocean technologies with emphasis on operational enhancements, emerging oceanology business opportunities, regulatory challenges and the impact on current and future careers.