Egypt’s strategic position between East and West has put the country at the very centre of the trade route between Europe, Africa and Asia for millennia, with a huge variety of goods flowing that span agricultural produce to animals, decorative items, metals and precious stones. Egypt’s unique geographical position also makes it one of the world’s most important gateways for data as it flows between Europe and Asia, and Telecom Egypt is the custodian of that data as it crosses the country.

To deliver customer data to 145+ landing points globally, Telecom Egypt connects into 11 cable systems from the West and 10 from the East and operates a total of seven diversified fibre routes. It has 15+ terabytes per second of lit fibre capacity, and operates two major sub-sea networks (under the Red Sea and the Mediterranean).

Putting customers first with Ciena

Telecom Egypt is certainly a major global data hub, but to help transition its customers from static dark fibre links and deliver the most flexible, reliable network services , Telecom Egypt has partnered with Ciena to build a new fibre mesh network. This is great news for carriers who connect customers in Europe and Asia, providing more agility and a lower cost of entry for data services delivered via the Telecom Egypt infrastructure.

In the event of a failure or even multiple fibre cuts, traffic is rerouted dynamically in just 50 milliseconds, which means fibre breaks no longer negatively impact on the subscriber’s experience.

First, let’s talk reliability, which is a massive consideration for any carrier connecting its customers via Egypt. The mesh network, as the name suggests, has multiple possible routes, and in the event of a failure or even multiple fibre cuts, traffic is rerouted dynamically in just 50 milliseconds, which means fibre breaks no longer negatively impact on the subscriber’s experience. The Ciena mesh network also has built-in fault detection tools, which means Telecom Egypt can see exactly where a fibre break has occurred. This kind of network intelligence means that Telecom Egypt can offer customers compelling SLAs for lit fibre services, with an SLA portal that shows exactly how links are performing at all times.

Second comes agility, Telecom Egypt customers can now take a 10G wavelength and launch a new service, without having, and paying for, unused capacity. If the service takes off, another 10G wavelength can be set up in a way that’s practical and cost effective. Of course, 100G wavelengths are also available as needed.

With the possibility of starting small, plus competitive availability SLAs, carriers can now deliver all manner of data services over the Telecom Egypt network, from VPNs and content distribution services, to cloud connectivity, datacentre interconnects, disaster recovery, and more. Exactly what services are built and sold on the Telecom Egypt network are only limited by the imagination.

At Ciena, we’re proud of what we’ve helped Telecom Egypt to achieve with its new optical mesh network, and we know that the new services and SLAs available will be a huge benefit for its carrier customers.