Orange Business Services (OBS) announced last month the signing of a number of agreements with prominent enterprises throughout the Middle East.
Managed service provider, Orange Business Services (OBS), has been having a busy time in the region of late with the announcement of significant regional deals, which according to the firm, goes to demonstrate its increasing focus on the Middle East.
“The agreements we have reached, and the quality of partners, clearly demonstrate the value we are bringing to the Middle East. It’s in keeping with our strategy for the real estate and enterprise spaces and is all contributing to keeping our growth in the double digits we have been seeing,” says Lionel Reina, vice president for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at OBS.
This is to date the largest deal we have signed in this region and so carries real significance for us.
At the top of the recent list of big wins for the French company is its partnership with real estate giant Emaar in acting as the telecoms consultant for the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) development in Saudi Arabia.
The managed services provider has been tasked with acting as a consultant on issues relating to telephony, IPTV and wireless connectivity.
Part of this will involve working to develop a single IP network that can support the demands for entertainment, information and business communications services while also connecting essential building services to a central network.
“These smart cities are proving not only more attractive to prospective tenants and occupiers but also offer lower costs in terms of maintenance and management of the basic services, whilst offering the potential to bring in additional non-rental revenues to developers,” says Reina.
OBS has also signed an agreement with the Kuwait based, United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) to provide the organisation with a wide area network (WAN).
UASC is the largest ocean carrier of dry cargo to the Middle East and so requires scalable yet robust network capabilities. The network that OBS will provide them will consist of 28 remote sites including locations in North America, Europe and the Middle East. They will all be linked to the central datacentre in Singapore from where all mission critical applications will be accessed.
“We are very happy as this is a very large contract for us. This is worth a fair bit of revenue, but more than that, it is a continuation of a business where we have great experience through our European operations,” explains Reina.
OBS is also expected to provide the shipping company with IP services, which allow internet access that does not compromise the corporate network, and at the same time, manages security effectively.In another agreement, OBS has signed on to provide network and managed services for the MAF Carrefour hypermarket group’s 30 sites across the Middle East. This is the single biggest regional network contract that OBS has signed in the EEMEA region. This four year agreement will see the sites all connected through global IP VPN.
“This is to date the largest deal we have signed in this region and so carries real significance for us. It is also our first deal with the MAF group who are extremely strong in the region, as well as Europe and the USA,” emphasises Reina.
The OBS VPN will consist of multiple backbone, access, and router technology, tied together with a single network operation and management system. According to the company, using IP network technology will lead to an overall lowest cost network solution for MAF Carrefour that meets the performance needs of each of their sites. The associated security services will be hosted from the OBS datacentre located in France.
OBS continues to add new services to the work that it has been doing for existing customers in the region.
“Over the last two years, MAF Carrefour has been working to develop and implement a new IT strategy to meet the rapidly developing needs of the expanding regional business, for central support for financial, ERP and communications applications. This agreement with OBS gives us access to a highly flexible network with regional and global reach and a comprehensive set of services which simplifies the management process and offers scalability,” says Chris Mahiat, CIO of MAF Carrefour.
OBS continues to add new services to the work that it has been doing for existing customers and recently launched an IPTV service in the central district of Beirut.
The network involves 120 television channels being streamed directly to users through a metro Ethernet network. According to OBS, subscribers to the IPTV service receive an integrated home gateway and set-top box featuring a personal video recorder, which also supports time-shift TV and video-on-demand. Each subscriber has a 100 Mbps access line ensuring there is sufficient bandwidth for more than three simultaneous TV channels as well as high-speed Internet access.
“This is a continuation of our service for operators and real estate development and you can see this is the base for adding value to the underlying network,” says Reina.
This MPLS network supports a range of multimedia services alongside a scalable Internet gateway including video-on-demand, video conferencing, closed circuit television, and gaming services.
“Beirut is a 21st century city so it deserves 21st century telecoms services. By bringing our expertise of developing broadband and IPTV services in Europe to Lebanon, we have created one of the most advanced IPTV services anywhere in the Middle East. This is just one step in our goal to enable smart cities throughout the region, where broadband is the fundamental building block for improved living and working,” says Reina.
OBS has previously stated that its goals in the region is to become a major player in the real estate sector where it offers a variety of managed services and provides a diverse range of technologies and solutions.
“What is most important in my opinion is that our strategies are demonstrating value to the market. This is not only reflected in the agreements we have already signed but the deals we are set to sign and announce before the end of this year,” concludes Reina.
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