Iran’s state-owned Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC) says it has signed a memorandum of agreement with Omantel and Iranian infrastructure firm Pishgaman to create a data transit corridor between Iran and Oman.
Under the agreement, the three companies intend top optimize existing infrastructure to increase Iran’s data capacity to Oman to 4.5 Gbps.
TIC – which operates under the auspices of Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology – said in a statement that the partnership with Omantel would strengthen Iran’s access to international networks through its southern route and enable more stable connectivity to global data centres.
Meanwhile, utilizing Iran’s northern routes for transit would increase the security and diversity of data transmission routes to Europe, TIC said.
The deal aims to kickstart the Iranian government’s plan to create an “Iran Corridor” that would transform the country into a regional data transit hub.
At an event in in Dubai on February 3 to promote the Iran Corridor project, TIC invited attendees to explore “opportunities for co-investment in interregional cable systems, leveraging Iran’s role at the crossroads of Trans-Eurasian corridors”, including the Middle East to Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea.
TIC said using Iran as a transit corridor would reduce the time and cost of data transfer between Asia, Middle East and Europe and provide an efficient alternative to longer sea routes.
