Kalaam Telecom Deploys Ciena to Launch KNOT Cable System

Kalaam Telecom Group, a managed solutions provider for businesses across GCC and international markets, has launched Kalaam Network Optical Transit (KNOT), a new fiber-optic terrestrial international cable system that enhances regional and international connectivity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The KNOT terrestrial Fiber-optic cable system will span over 1,400km, providing capacity of 12.8 Terabits per second (Tbps) and beyond with lowest latency connectivity to the MENA region.

Given the cable is carried over an optical ground wire associated with a regional high-tension electricity network (GCCIA), it reduces the risk of cable cuts significantly, as is evident from the very high availability of the GCCIA network over the past 5 years.

Veer Passi, Group CEO of Kalaam and Tawasul Telecom said: “Kalaam chose to invest in this multi-million-dollar network expansion project to sustain the ever-growing demand for data connectivity and business applications to and from the MENA region. This new state-of-the-art, upgradeable optical transport network is fully owned and operated by Kalaam Telecom Group.”

“With the launch of KNOT, an open cable system, Kalaam will continue its legacy of being an innovative and disruptive solution provider, which aims to make connectivity in the MENA region more competitive. This will provide a highly scalable alternative to carriers, CDNs, OTTs, Cloud Providers, Data centers and Enterprises to benefit from innovative solutions and enhanced communications experience,” Added Passi.

The KNOT cable system is powered by Ciena’s 6500 Packet Optical platform equipped with WaveLogic coherent technology, to offer flexible bandwidth capacities. The whole infrastructure is managed by the state-of-the-art micro-services based Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) SDN domain controller using open APIs, to provide 10G, 100G, 200G services and beyond over an Optical Transport Network (OTN).

Jamie Jefferies, Vice President and General Manager, EMEA at Ciena stated: “Working together with Kalaam Telecom, we will be building a world-class networking infrastructure, based on our WaveLogic coherent technology, that can dynamically scale and adapt to changing customer expectations and unpredictable traffic requirements.”

The new cable system provides route diversity across the Middle East by connecting our meshed transmission network across 12 countries, homing 16 Points of Presence (PoP) and further connecting the MENA region as a gateway through our POPs in Europe and Asia. The cable will go live in Q4-2020.