Retelit SpA, an Italian provider of data services and infrastructure, says it has reached a commercial agreement with a major Asian international telecommunications company to a 20-year sale of 1.1 Tbps of capacity on the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) fiber-optic submarine cable system connecting Europe to Asia, via Bari. The agreement with the otherwise unidentified company also enables Retelit to use an array of services available from Asian players to complement its range of Italian market international services, and to accelerate its network and points of presence expansion strategy, beginning with Asian market hubs Singapore and Hong Kong.
According to Retelit, the partnership will enable the Asian operator to use Retelit's backhaul services to connect the capacity acquired on the AAE-1 system from Bari to main internet exchanges and Italian and European content suppliers, meeting growing internet traffic demands on its own market.
"We are certainly satisfied with this partnership which confirms the strength of the strategic choices made and the AAE-1 submarine cable investment," said Federico Protto, Retelit CEO. "This operation, in fact, lays the foundation for accelerating the return on the investment made in this infrastructure and at the same time allows up to open up more to the quickly expanding Asian market. Italy, also thanks to its geographic location, is once again becoming strategic for the TLC sector, particularly for the transport of communication traffic in the Mediterranean to and from Asia. Retelit, thanks to the AAE-1 cable, the Bari Landing Station and the Backhaul infrastructure to Europe, can clearly play a very central role".
In July, the AAE-1 Consortium launched commercial services on the 25,000-km AAE-1 undersea cable system linking Europe to the Far East (see "Asia-Africa-Europe-1 Consortium launches commercial services on AAE-1 submarine cable system"). The AAE-1 is the world's fastest cable system with a capacity of 40 Tbps and 100 Gbps technology, and will provide the lowest level of point-to-point latency through its express route between Egypt and Thailand, says the provider.
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