GBI was established in December 2008 to address a market opportunity. The opportunity is to deploy and manage a subsea cable system which will connect the Gulf countries together and provide onward connectivity to the rest of the world. The opportunity arose from a number of factors, including the lack of diversity and resilience as witnessed by the cable outages at the start of 2008.
At the same time, it became apparent that the region was capacity hungry. Between 2005 and 2009 the Middle East was the fastest growing region globally in terms of demand for bandwidth and capacity usage. That demand is forecast to double every year over the course of the next decade. Demand is being driven by many factors. A major factor has been the opening up of the regional telecom markets to competition which has stimulated an unprecedented increase in the use of mobile and broadband internet services. In addition, the initiatives by governments around the Gulf to lessen their dependence on carbon based industries and diversify their investments to include other sectors, have increased the demand for superior levels of international connectivity from sectors such as Finance and Media.
Since we identified the opportunity, our project has been validated by the continuing growth in the market and by telecom operators who say they are looking for a new business model; and the infrastructure to enable them to provide new applications and services. We are launching in the right market at the right time. Indeed we have increased the scope of our project as we have extended the reach of our network to all the major European centres.
What sets GBI apart is our innovative approach to the building of the sub-sea cable system:
GBI is operator neutral, which means that we will seek to serve all customers equally
Through our landing partners in the region GBI has access to the most sophisticated and reliable terrestrial in-country networks
The GBI network offers the most comprehensive and seamless connectivity in the region and onwards to Europe and Asia
The network design utilizes the latest technology and offers greater resilience, security and choice to our customers
For these reasons and more, GBI will forever change the landscape for international connectivity in the Gulf region.