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Saudi Telecom Co buys $1.5bn underwater cable system

DUBAI: The Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has purchsed a $1.5 billion underwater cable system from FLAG Telecom Holdings Ltd FTHL to boost the kingdom's global connectivity, the Saudi Gazette reported on Sunday.

"The underwater cabling capability will be used to carry advanced communications services, including high speed data, broadcast and Internet traffic," the newspaper quoted STC as saying.

STC said a consortium of companies outside Saudi Arabia and the Saudi private sector will hel ppay for the cable system which will stretch from the Red Sea port city of Jeddah to the United Kingdom and the United States. It did not elaborate.

FLAG, or Fibreoptic Link Around the Globe, was formed as holding company in 1999. Its network includes the FLAG Europe-Asia cable system, the world's longest privately-owned digital fibre optic undersea cable system.

The Bermuda-based FLAG said earlier that STC had bought a capacity in its Atlantic-1 cable systems.-Reuters