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Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecom services provider, has announced a partnership with Telecom Egypt (TE), the country’s first integrated telecom operator. The strategic partnership gives Airtel indefeasible right of use (IRU) on the Middle, East and North Africa submarine (MENA) cable and TE’s North cable systems.

In addition to that, Airtel will also take large capacities on a long-term basis on two new state-of-the-art cable systems -- SEA-ME-WE 5 and AAE-1.

According to a statement released today by Airtel, the partnership will help to further diversify its global network to serve the massive growth in demand for data services, particularly in emerging markets across South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

“The partnership including MENA Cable and TE’s network will be a good addition to our global network portfolio and provide us with a high quality and diversified new route to Western Europe and the rest of the world,” said Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO of Airtel Business. “With the explosion of data usage in emerging markets, including India and Africa, this asset will provide us a scalable and diverse high capacity highway to serve our customers.”

According to the CEO of Telecom Egypt, Ahmed El Beheiry, TE’s global network was built over the years through investments in consortiums as well as private international submarine cable systems.

“Our reach and position as an international hub with tens of tbps lit capacity, makes us the partner of choice for Euro-Asian and Euro-African transit traffic,” Beheiry said. “We are pleased to be able to sign the MoU with Airtel as well as to be able to bundle MENA’s assets with existing assets of the TE network.”

The partnership grants Airtel the right to use fibre pairs of MENA Cable from Egypt to India with access to Saudi Arabia and Oman, and other fibre pairs from Egypt towards Italy. It also extends beyond MENA Cable, where Airtel will get the right to use a fibre pair from Egypt to France on TE’s North along with capacities on SMW5 and AAE1 cable systems.

Airtel’s global network portfolio includes ownership of i2i submarine cable system connecting Chennai to Singapore; consortium ownership of SMW4 submarine cable system connecting Chennai and Mumbai to Singapore and Europe; and new cable system investments like Asia America Gateway (AAG), India Middle East and Western Europe (IMEWE), Unity, Europe India Gateway (EIG) and East Africa Submarine System (EASS).

The telecom company also has terrestrial express connectivity to neighbouring countries, including Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and China.