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e& and SES Join Forces to Offer One-Hop Connectivity to Microsoft Azure

October 13, 2022

The Carrier and Wholesale Services (C&WS) division of e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group) announced its partnership with Microsoft and SES to host the co-located SES O3b mPOWER and Microsoft ground station at Ras Al Khaimah. The first O3b mPOWER ground station in the region will facilitate one-hop connectivity to the cloud from remote sites so that customers can optimize their global business operations smoothly. The partnership will also enable companies - regardless of their location - to accelerate their digitalization plans while unlocking more value for the businesses.

This trio partnership will mean that e& network services can be easily connected and extended via SES’s second-generation medium earth orbit (MEO) constellation – O3b mPOWER – which aims to deliver high-speed connectivity services from tens of megabits to multiple gigabits per second to one site. The one-hop connectivity to Azure Cloud and SES’s satellite network also enables simplicity, flexibility but also minimizes any network latency delays. The ground station at Ras Al Khaimah is one of the eight initial O3b mPOWER gateway sites which will support both customer data services and the TTC (Telemetry, Tracking and Control) control of the satellite system. 

“SES’s O3b mPOWER satellite services will enhance cloud-enabled capability to meet critical industry connectivity needs with greater resiliency and enable users in e&’s customer base to benefit from enabling Cloud applications regardless of where they are located," said William Chappell, Vice President of Azure Global, Microsoft.

“This partnership is an important milestone in providing customers with the ability to optimize business operations in a flexible and agile manner while accessing connectivity to the cloud from remote sites via satellites and leveraging e&’s global network with space coverage. e& will capitalise on the success of O3b mPOWER satellites to deliver fibre-like connectivity to meet growing customer demands globally,” said Nabil Baccouche, Group Chief Carrier & Wholesale Officer, e&. “Through this partnership, our international customers will have access to cloud-based services and platforms regardless of their location.”

John-Paul Hemingway, Chief Strategy & Product Officer of SES, said, “These are exciting times as the extended relationship with e& will enable all three companies to take another step towards delivering high-performance, low-latency networks virtually anywhere. Regardless of their remote locations, customers worldwide will be able to access and experience cloud-based applications seamlessly. Our ground-breaking O3b mPOWER system will provide new levels of cloud-scale satellite connectivity, intelligent automation and managed services and support digitalization across a wide range of sectors.”