UNIFI Communications (UNIFI), a leading US-based international telecommunications carrier, announced today that the permits being held by UNIFI Holdings Albania Branch, UNIFI’s sister company in Albania, for the Balkans-Italy Network (BIN) Phase 1 construction activities in Albania, have been renewed with a favorable decision taken on January 16, 2014 by the Council Of Ministers in the Republic of Albania.
Adrian Shatku, President and CEO of UNIFI explained, “This permit renewal now clears the way for us to move our BIN and BIX projects forward with investors that are interested in bringing improved network connectivity to Albania and neighboring Balkan countries. With renewed support from the Albanian government and selected investors, we will now be able to move forward with Albania’s first private undersea fiber optic cable system.”
Although Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN) was originally selected as the turn-key supplier for the BIN Phase 1 undersea cable project implementation, the timing of this permit renewal gives UNIFI an opportunity to re-evaluate terms offered by multiple suppliers for the undersea connection between Tirana, Albania and Bari, Italy, including improved project payment and delivery schedules. This will hopefully permit commercial services to begin by the end of this year (2014) at a newly created Balkans Internet eXchange (BIX) in Tirana. The BIX project is being developed by UNIFI in parallel with the BIN fiber project in order to serve as Albania’s first fiber-connected data center offering connectivity from Albania to all major telecommunications hubs in Western Europe, including Milan, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and London.
Brian Crawford, UNIFI’s VP of Networks, Technology, Project Management & Business Development added, “Together, the BIN and BIX projects will likely transform Albania into an Internet connectivity hub for the Balkan region as described in our 1••• minute introductory video (at http://www.bin.al/intro_video.htm). BIN and BIX will make faster, more reliable, and easily accessible internationally-connected equipment space available to the region’s underserved market, providing a new and virtually unlimited source of bandwidth to service providers now struggling to meet the exponentially growing demands originating from the world’s insatiable appetite for mobile devices, multimedia applications, and ubiquitous connectivity. Behind the scenes, it is the reliable availability of suitable and secure equipment collocation space with uninterruptible power, cooling capacity, and global backbone network connectivity that makes possible all of the latest, greatest, and popular technology services enjoyed world-wide by young and old, including everything from voice calls, text messages, email, desktop sharing, video conferencing and virtualization to online gaming, online banking, and social networking. None of today’s popular brands could function without this type of critical global fiber optic backbone infrastructure.”
About UNIFI Communications
UNIFI COMMUNICATIONS (pronounced “Unify” communications), headquartered in New York City, USA, is an international voice carrier and a leading provider of enhanced telecommunication services and solutions. Service offerings include highly competitive wholesale voice termination services, pre-paid calling services partnerships (co-branding, marketing, and sales of partner services), solutions for enterprise customers (pure IP phone systems, International SIP trunks, etc.), customized mobile solutions (messaging, roaming, etc.), and network infrastructure development services (satellite, terrestrial, undersea, wireless, etc.). For more information, visit www.unificom.com.
