Alcatel bags Flag Tele contract

Reliance Group's FLAG Telecom has awarded a turnkey contract to its key supplier Alcatel to set up a 10,000-km Falcon submarine cable system. FLAG is a provider of international wholesale network transport and communications services.

Falcon submarine cable will offer high-quality capacity in the region and provide multiple landings throughout the Gulf region, with submarine links initially stretching to India in the east and to Egypt in the west.

The cable will also address the growing traffic demands of broadband services. The Falcon network will be built and installed in phases.

The initial service will commence by the fourth quarter of 2005. As per the terms of the contract, Alcatel will manage all areas of the cable construction, including installation, commissioning and testing.

Patrick Gallagher, CEO, FLAG Telecom, said: "Demand for high-quality, cost-effective bandwidth to and from India and the West Asia is exploding. Falcon is a key element in our future plans to meet our customer requirements and we are delighted to be working again with Alcatel. Falcon will dramatically change the global communications infrastructure balance by bringing terabit/s capacity to the Gulf for the first time and providing additional access to India, the second largest growth economy in the world."

Alcatel's branching units are being added along the entire Falcon cable route to allow more countries in the region to connect to the system as their communications needs continue to expand, the release added.

FLAG owns and manages an extensive optical fibre network spanning four continents and connecting key business markets in Asia, Europe, West Asia and the USA.

It also owns and operates a low latency global MPLS-based internet protocol (IP) network, which connects most of the world's principal international Internet exchanges.