Level 3 Communications today announced a strategic long-term agreement Saudi Telecom (STC) to enable international IP and content distribution services in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East.
The agreement leverages the respective strengths of each company to provide significantly enhanced connectivity and breadth of services to customers connecting to the Middle East. Both US and European CDN customers will have access to a new broadband market in the Middle East and content customers in the Middle East will have the ability to distribute their content across both STC’s and Level 3’s international networks.
According to Saad Demyati, VP of Wholesale Business Unit, Saudi Telecom, “With the largest international network in the Middle East and Africa, Saudi Telecom is the only Middle East operator today that has international connectivity by way of both multiple submarine cable systems and a terrestrial cable system via the recently launched Jeddah-Amman-Damascus-Istanbul (JADI) link. Our relationship with Level 3 allows us to offer the reliable, high-quality global connectivity and end-to-end solutions our customers increasingly demand, with the unique benefit of access to a fully redundant and scalable Tier 1 network.”
As a part of the deal, Level 3 is providing STC with increased IP connectivity in the form of multiple 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) ports at various points of presence (PoPs) across Europe.
“Leveraging STC’s terrestrial connectivity in eight Middle Eastern countries, combined with the broad reach of Level 3’s international IP and CDN networks, we’re able to expand our offerings to new and existing customers around the world. We’ve worked hard over the years to build out our international connectivity, and this agreement with STC is an important next step in expanding that connectivity even further into a region where we see a lot of potential for growth.” said James Heard, President of European Markets, Level 3 Communications.
Level 3 has a strong history of commitment to Middle East service providers. Through its existing PoP site in Marseille as well as more than 300 other PoP locations across Europe, Level 3 allows for greater connectivity to the Middle East and Africa as well as more reliable and scalable IP network services.
