Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat) holds its second Operation Forum in the Kingdom of Morocco in Marrakech on November 9-10, 2009, in the presence of communications officials. Arabsat delegation in this forum is headed by Eng / Mueid Ben Gharamalla Al-Zahrani, Executive Vice President for Technical Affairs.
He stated that “There will be many issues to discuss during the meeting, and several of the worksheets will be presented by the different Arab departments that are members in the organization, in addition to the papers submitted by private companies working in the field of Telecommunications. Also Arabsat will demonstrate its new services offered through its satellites Badr-5 and 5-A, which are among the latest satellites in the region as well as its future transition plans. Furthermore , the latest developments in communications and many important issues related to the future of communications in the Arab region will be discussed.”
Arabsat is considered the largest satellite operator in the Middle East and North Africa and has been classified in ninth place among the largest satellite operators in the world. Arabsat is going ahead with plans for future growth to launch a new satellite every year until 2012.
Photo at left: At a dinner reception hosted by the French ambassador at The Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh, Her Excellency French minister of state for foreign trade, Anne-Marie Idrac, on behalf of the President of the French Republic, has decorated Eng. Khalid Ben Ahmed Balkheyour, president and CEO of Arabsat with the title of Legion of Honor Chevalier (Knight) as a recognition for his constructive efforts in developing a trade and economic cooperative relations between the Arab Satellite Communication Organization (Arabsat) and the State of France.
Satlynx, a GE company and leading provider of satellite telecommunications, has teamed up with Arabsat the largest Middle-East satellite operator, to deliver a fully redundant satellite network that will provide the foundations of a new extensive communications platform for the Central Bank of Iraq.
The main contractor for this World Bank funded US$2.7 million project is Luxembourg-based Iraqi owned firm, Alfa Consult. The network interconnects two Central Bank of Iraq locations in Baghdad with 7 other remote banks in Basrah, Mosul, Anbar, Kirkuk, Najaf, Hilla and Karbala. It forms the backbone over which the Iraqi Payment System (IPS) will run, enabling secure and rapid financial transactions to take place across the country to the benefit of the Iraqi economy.
“This is just the latest in a series of investments in the essential communications infrastructure of Iraq,” declared Mr. Saleh M. Salman, Head of Payments Department at the Central Bank of Iraq, “the IPS system will cut the time required to process financial transactions in Iraq, thanks to the satellite system put in place by Satlynx and Arabsat.”
The solution is based on the Satlynx Direct satellite platform, built around iDirect technology, with the main hub based at Satlynx’s fully secured Teleport in Leuk, Switzerland. The Satlynx Direct platform with significant cost efficiency through bandwidth optimization enables two-way communications between the main sites in Baghdad and the remote sites throughout Iraq.
Full redundancy is provided at every level of the network, with two satellite terminals installed by Alfa Consult at each location and satellite coverage provided primarily via Arabsat’s BADR-4 @ 26 degrees East, with a hot stand-by option on a secondary satellite system.
The decision to base the network on satellite rather than terrestrial connections was an easy one given the unreliability of the infrastructure that remains after decades of neglect and the destruction that has taken place during the recent upheaval in Iraq.
Prime contractor Alfa Consult’s Mr. Salar Zahed, Vice President, Director of Marketing, added “The lack of infrastructure has also meant that we had to cope with frequent power outages throughout the installation stages, but nonetheless, we were able to get the job done and deploy a secure and working network thanks to the Satlynx solution”.
Ronny Svang, President and CEO of Satlynx is keen to stress the partnership aspect of the project: “All three organizations – ourselves, Alfa Consult and Arabsat – have worked closely together on this vital project and will continue to do so to ensure its long term success – a critical infrastructure component for the Iraqi economy. For our part, we will ensure that the network is monitored with meticulous diligence to ensure continuous service availability”. Khalid Balkheyour, President & CEO of Arabsat, added “As a body of the Arab League, we believe it was definitely Arabsat’s role to actively support such an essential project that will constitute yet another important milestone in the recovery of the Iraqi economy.”
“We’re extremely proud to have been able to join forces with a long-time key and reputable partner like GE’s Satlynx to provide the required space connectivity on our BADR-4 satellite, thus significantly contributing to enabling this critical data network with some of our primary capacity.”
Satlynx is already operating many critical government and key NGOs’ networks across the globe, including numerous major countries’ embassies and is now actively supporting the MEA region’s public bodies rapidly growing infrastructure deployment needs by folding its 20-years legacy know-how into strategic partnerships with key regional players.
