OTEGLOBE believes it is in the perfect position to provide a unique offering to its partners when the AAE-1 cable launches imminently, as a member and landing party of the cable consortium.
As the launch of the AAE-1 subsea cable between Europe and the Far East grows ever closer, the race is on for carriers on the network to make sure they can fully capitalise on the opportunities it provides. AAE-1 connects the Far East to Europe, via countries in the Middle East and Africa.
OTEGLOBE, the international wholesale arm of the Greece-headquartered OTE Group, counts on its offer of diversity and resilience to customers that partner with it to pass traffic from other regions on through Europe.
Well-located between East and West
OTEGLOBE believes it is well-located to carry traffic travelling between regions. Although its landing station at Chania is not yet among the better-known landing stations, there is great potential to gain recognition – opened up by the possibilities of the AAE-1 cable landing there.
Given its location on the island of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean and its close proximity to Egypt, traffic that goes to Chania has much less far to travel underwater than towards other European markets. This makes it less susceptible to subsea fibre cuts in areas where many of these have happened simultaneously and interrupted traffic flow in the past.
Coupled with this is the diversity that OTEGLOBE offers via its robust and resilient network infrastructure.
A robust and diverse European backbone
The company offers two well-established fibre-optic routes via the Balkans, allowing customers that link up at OTEGLOBE’s AAE-1 landing station in Chania to take a unique pathway onwards through Eastern European markets towards Western Europe. And the company also believes that in the future an increasing number of customers will want to extend their footprints to up-and-coming markets in Eastern Europe, such as Sofia in Bulgaria, as these countries become better connected with new cables such as AAE-1.
Complementing the trans-Balkan infrastructure are another two fibre-optic routes that connect Greece to France, Germany, Netherlands and the UK via an initial landing site in Bari, Italy.
These four routes comprise OTEGLOBE’s optical backbone, which is currently undergoing a major overhaul, adding more capacity and flexibility with new dark fibre acquisitions.
This will give customers that connect to OTEGLOBE via the AAE-1 cable a variety of options for routing their traffic onwards via terrestrial fibre through Europe, either through the traditional Western European pathway or the growing markets of Eastern Europe. This diversity also gives providers the opportunity to “protect” their traffic by using different pathways.
Moreover, OTEGLOBE’s network will be cost-competitive in terms of the premium routes and quality it offers compared to other cable infrastructure – and with market prices falling, this is important for OTEGLOBE to stay “one step ahead” of the competition.
The network expansion is very much in coordination with OTEGLOBE’s investment in AAE-1, having the advantage of improving all networks in tandem. The idea is to build a “mesh-type” optical network in Europe that will seamlessly carry traffic between regions and provide extra diversity, security and low latency to its customers.
Strong partnerships the key to success
In the other direction, OTEGLOBE is also seeking to build some partnerships to serve traffic out of the major Asian data centres in Hong Kong and Singapore, extending its reach in key markets in that part of the world. Already extending its footprint and services by partnering with well-established carriers in the CIS region, the Middle East and Africa, the company is looking to team up with local carriers in Asia to grow its service portfolio there.
Whatever the eventual business models that emerge from the huge opportunities provided by the new AAE-1 cable, OTEGLOBE believes that it has a proposition that is truly attractive for potential customers. “AAE-1 will bring more and more traffic from Asia to Europe, and I think that the carriers will use it. As OTEGLOBE, we’re offering a unique, diverse route in the Mediterranean basin towards Europe that could be used both as a primary or an alternative path,” says COO George Nikoloudis.
For more information, please visit www.oteglobe.gr
