ITC to build $930m Saudi Arabia fibre-to-the-home network
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ITC to build $930m Saudi Arabia fibre-to-the-home network

Saudi Arabia’s Integrated Telecom Company (ITC) has started work on a project to build a high-speed fibre network across the country.

The aim is to connect 640,000 homes, at a cost of 3.5 billion riyals ($930 million). ITC has signed an agreement with the Ministry of Comminutions and Information Technology (MCIT) to implement the work, said the company.

Ghassan Itani, CEO of ITC, said: “This agreement will improve the level of services provided to customers in all sectors.”

The work will “enhance the digital infrastructure as well as help in providing high-speed fibre optic broadband services to the urban areas of the kingdom, government offices and residential units”, he added.

ITC signed the initial agreement on broadband initiatives with the MCIT and the country’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) in May.

Itani said: “This agreement comes within the framework of the continuous support and participation of ITC to the directives of the MCIT and CITC, and continuing on the company commitment to utilise all its financial, technical and human capabilities to achieve all the strategic objectives of the National Transition Programme 2020 initiatives, within Saudi Vision 2030.”

ITC operates two cable landing stations – at Jeddah on the Red Sea coast in the west and Al-Khobar on the Gulf coast in the east – that are connected to its existing 17,000km Saudi National Fibre Network, and it owns a number of data centres.

The company, set up in 2005, is part of Al Mawarid group of companies, a diversified Saudi conglomerate that owns media and other businesses.



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