Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately-owned submarine cable operator, and Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications (SubCom), have announced the launch of its marine operations on the GBI cable system.

An industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, Subcom is the cable system supplier for GBI.

Scheduled to launch in 2011, GBI will be the region’s most advanced subsea cable network, providing a capacity of 2.56 terabits per second.

The network will offer double landings in Qatar and Fujairah (UAE) with branched landings in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman, and will provide onward connectivity to Europe, Africa and Asia.

The GBI cable is developed and owned by GCC investors who are building this strategic infrastructure to serve the entire region. GBI said it intends to be the carrier of choice for traffic to and from the Gulf, facilitating social and economic growth in the region.

The cable manufactured at the SubCom facility in Newington, began loading onto the Reliance Class vessel, Responder, said a GBI statement.

In the coming months, the ship will install the high-capacity GBI cable system that has been specifically designed to provide greater connectivity, reach and diversity to the entire Gulf region, it added.

“We are thrilled to mark the commencement of marine operations for the GBI Cable System and truly look forward to the day when the completed system connects the Gulf region to the world, and the world to the Gulf region” said Ahmed Mekky, GBI’s CEO.

“We remain committed to our  ultimate goal of supplying the most advanced broadband carrier services to telecoms operators from around the Gulf and beyond, enabling them to provide their customers with greatly needed capacity, diversity and choice.”

The GBI cable system will include 4750 km of cable, with SubCom deploying several state of the art technologies, such as new dual-stage repeaters and wavelength monitoring units. The system will be configured as a self-healing ring in the Gulf.

Unlike a festoon network, this topology will provide greater protection from cable cuts resulting in a higher quality of service with minimum service disruption. In addition, the system powering will provide for additional layers of redundancy.

“We join with GBI in celebrating the first step in the installation process towards a completed system,” said David Coughlan, president of TE SubCom.

“The coming months will be exciting times for both our organizations as we deploy a system that is highly advanced, extremely reliable and capable of having a significant effect on the entire region,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service