The Iraqi National Backbone is a joint venture between Symphony and EarthLink JLT, reaching most major Iraqi cities. It will be available to the public as the new official internet service provider (ISP) for Iraq.
“Creative thinking by the leaders of Symphony and EarthLink will soon be changing the lives of the people of Iraq,” said Mike Weston, vice president, Middle East, Cisco. “The extended reach of the network and its advanced capabilities unleashes the transformational power of connectivity and sets a solid foundation for achieving Iraq’s development goals. With this project, Cisco further establishes its leadership with IP and optical networks that require multi-layer restoration and automation, and industry leading performance in long haul applications.”
The new network is an alternative to existing submarine networks that reached the Middle East from Europe either via the Suez Canal, or by a longer route around the Horn of Africa. It will offer the highest capacity and lowest latency of any Europe-Middle East communications solution. The new terrestrial route from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Europe via Turkey also includes new long haul routes to most of the major cities throughout Iraq.
The Iraqi National Backbone will soon become one of the longest in-production multi-layer restoration network environments in the world. The project is in the install phase now and is expected to offer commercial service in March of 2017.
