SR 600 m investment: Mobily, Emaar Economic City deal

Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) has announced the signing of a contract with Emaar Economic City (EEC) to deploy, operate, and maintain communication networks within King Abdullah Economic City KAEC.
Khalid Al-Kaf, Mobily CEO and MD, and Fahd bin Abdulmohsen Al-Rasheed, KAEC CEO and MD, signed the contract.
Valid for a period of eight years (subject to extension), it entails a SR 600 million investment by Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) during the duration of the contract to plan, deploy, maintain and operate the telecommunications network within KAEC and provide advanced infrastructure for integrated telecommunications services, as well as data transmission services and broadband Internet services through an advanced, secure and high reliability fiber optic network.
The company will also provide Data Center and Smart City services such as (IPTV) as well as Ethernet VPN (L2), IP VPN (L3) Direct Internet Access (DIA), IP Transit, Broad Band at Work, and Business Connect.
Mobily will also provide communications management services, which reduce the time to install and manage telephone communications network for targeted companies in KAEC.
The funding will be self-financing and through banks as it is expected to generate revenues of about SR 1.4 billion during the contract period.
KAEC is the largest and one of the most important economic projects run by the private sector in the Middle East. It is an integrated city built with a waterfront.
This city is designed to be the largest among the four planned economic cities in Saudi Arabia.
A port is also included within the project to be among the top 20 container ports in the world.
It is expected that the city will have 421 companies and nearly 115,000 residential units, in addition to educational, medical and various vital facilities.