Huawei Marine Successfully Delivers Hannibal Submarine Cable System

[Tunis, Tunisia, 10 December, 2009] Huawei Marine Networks Co., Ltd. ("Huawei Marine") announced today that it has successfully delivered the Hannibal submarine cable communications system for Tunisie Telecom.

Spanning 180 km of the Mediterranean Sea and connecting Tunisia's Kelibia with Italy's Mazara de vallo, the system provides an initial capacity of 40 Gbit/s and can be readily upgradable up to 3.2 Tbit/s.

To complete its first turnkey submarine cable project since its inception, Huawei Marine formed a project delivery team of senior industry experts to design and implement a series of detailed project plans and exhaustive risk response measures in close cooperation with the customer. By fully utilizing the resources of its parent companies, Huawei Technologies and Global Marine Systems, Huawei Marine successfully delivered the project in just eight months.

"As well as meeting the growing demand for bandwidth in Tunisia, the Hannibal system has fortified the security of its international connections," said Mr. Montassar Ouaili, chairman and CEO of Tunisie Telecom. "The successful delivery relies heavily on Huawei Marine's leading technical solution, its professional delivery capabilities and above all its capacity to team-up with a demanding partner as Tunisie Telecom which is striving for delivering quality and reliability to its customers."

Nigel Bayliff, Huawei Marine's CEO, commented: "We're pleased to contribute to the submarine cable system for Tunisia. In the Hannibal project, we applied our cutting-edge unrepeatered solution to system design and installation. Huawei Marine is committed to offering high-performance and reliable submarine cable systems that maximize benefits for customers."

About Tunisie Telecom

Tunisie Telecom is the Tunisian's leading provider of national and international telecommunications’ services and Internet. Tunisie Telecom serves approximately 8 million customers worldwide. Being a leader in the mobile telephony market in Tunisia with more than 4.3 million subscribers, Tunisie Telecom is the only fixed-line telecommunications provider in Tunisia. In recent years, Tunisie Telecom has expanded its business ranging from mobile and fixed communications, Internet services, to Business Data and intelligent network. This project will provide Tunisie Telecom on the first hand with a convenient way to connect Europe and extend its international coverage to meet the growing demand for its local and international bandwidth requirements, and on the second hand a best redundancy for its international telecommunication traffic.

For more information, please visit www.tunisietelecom.tn