BICS, a leading international communications enabler, and Fastweb, a major Italian telecommunications operator, have today announced a strategic partnership offering a combined connectivity solution which will bridge Europe via Sicily, to the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The partnership follows Fastweb's access to major submarine cable systems in Sicily, and enables both companies to fully satisfy the capacity requirements and the connectivity needs of the operators from Europe to Middle East, Asia and Africa. The solution designed by the two companies extends BICS' Pan European Network, through Fastweb's fiber optic high speed, low latency, single hop backbone in Italy, connecting international submarine cable systems routes.
BICS and Fastweb will deliver international capacity services connecting existing and new customers in the Middle East, Africa and Asia to Europe, while offering an additional entry point into Europe, as a strategic alternative to Marseille (France). The partnership further consolidates BICS' strategy to connect submarine cable systems landing in Italy and Fastweb's positioning on the international wholesale market.
Through the partnership BICS and Fastweb offer to their global customer base seamless end-to-end backhaul services with significantly reduced latency and fully diversity paths. BICS and Fastweb will ensure premium Service Level Agreements thanks to their high reliability combined networks.
"BICS is committed to providing its customers with first class connectivity, and this partnership confirms our position as a bridging partner for operators expanding their capacity provision throughout Europe," said Daniel Kurgan, Chief Executive Officer at BICS.
Fabrizio Casati, Chief Wholesale Officer at Fastweb, stated: "We are highly satisfied with this partnership agreement with such a major international player as BICS, which indeed highlights the strength of our network and the solid nature of our strategy. The partnership with BICS adds further value to our investments, following on from the participation into the Open Hub Med consortium in Sicily and the development of an innovative and future proof Flexible Optical Network all along Italy".