Mubasher: Bahrain Telecommunications  (Batelco) has signed an agreement with the New York-listed Interxion Holding, a leading European provider of carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data centre services, according to a press statement on Tuesday.

The Bahraini company has signed the agreement for a new point of presence (PoP) in Marseille, France, during Capacity Middle East 2019 that is taking place from 4 to 7 March in Dubai, UAE.

The agreement is expected to expand Batelco’s presence in a strategically important hub location to accommodate the growing demand for internet bandwidth and content in Bahrain and the region.

Based on this PoP agreement, the facilitation of route diversity through terrestrial and submarine cables will be enabled, in addition to the position of Batelco as a regional provider for IP Transit service.

Currently, the majority of traffic in demand in Bahrain, the GCC, and the MENA region is a content available in Europe.

“The large and growing community of networks and Tier-1 content providers available to build partnerships with Interxion Marseille will accelerate Batelco’s ability to cater to this growing demand from customers,” the press release said.

Batelco has always aimed at providing the latest digital and technical solutions to its customers in line with Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030, chief global business officer at Batelco Adel Daylami commented, according to the press release.

He added, “With the increased use of internet, it is imperative that customers are provided with reliable solutions allowing them to run their operations smoothly. Batelco is working to establish an extensive national and international infrastructure.”

“The growing number of content, gaming, and cloud platforms present in our Marseille data centres will now enjoy enhanced access to Batelco’s residential and enterprise customers in Bahrain and the Middle East.  In addition, Batelco provides the 140+ networks present at Interxion Marseille with a significant new partner to exchange traffic with, as the city’s role as an interconnection hub continues to boom,” Adel Daylami said.