INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling
GBI diversifies North Route through Iraq , enhancing Smart Network
Global cloud , connectivity and content enabler Gulf Bridge International ( GBI ) has announced an update to the North Route of its subsea cable meshed Smart Network , improving route diversification and enhancing the resilience of Internet connectivity to and from the region .
The North Route , which now also connects the Gulf to Europe through Iraq , will leverage a wider range of terrestrial networks established by GBI and its partners . By circumventing the Arab peninsula completely , it shortens latency significantly – with latency between Europe and the Gulf data centres reduced by 40ms . Furthermore , adding diversification to existing North Route paths through Iran provides redundancy which means users remain connected in the case of outage . This is vital in ensuring the continuation of mission-critical operations . data demands on data cables reach an all-time high with missioncritical applications requiring expanding bandwidth and new low latency-dependent technologies such as 5G , IoT and AI moving into the mainstream .
It also helped the region prepare to meet the surge in Internet traffic caused by the World Cup 2022 held in Qatar in November .
“ It ’ s an adage old as time : don ’ t put all your eggs in one basket ,” said Brendan Press , CCO of GBI . “ Companies must shift away from overreliance on the same cable routes as that can produce bottlenecks and potential outages . They must work with providers that can provide diversification and , therefore , assurance that connectivity will always be available whatever the situation .
The enhancing of the North Route increases the overall resilience of GBI ’ s Smart Network . This also includes the South Route , which connects the Gulf to Europe via the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean .
The move is a welcome development for telecommunications , cloud , gaming and Internet Service Providers ( ISPs ) in the Gulf region as
“ By diversifying our North Route so that it now also passes through Iraq , we are providing that assurance . When you consider that we also have our South Route that runs through Egypt , we can confidently say our Smart Network is playing a critical role in keeping the world connected and is helping to propel the region into a global connectivity hub .” p
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