By Interoute

Interoute, owner of Europe’s largest next generation network, today announced that it has extended its pan-European fibre optic network into Istanbul, connecting Turkey to the heart of the EU. Despite the large numbers of European companies operating in Turkey, only a small number of providers cross the border into the EU, making options extremely limited for carriers and businesses. With Interoute’s fibre investment in Turkey, the provider becomes the only European operator to be able to provide high capacity connectivity direct from 26 European countries into Turkey’s dynamic business centre.

Uniquely positioned between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Turkey is a strategic global hub for multinational businesses. The country attracted more than $11 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2009 from multinational companies despite the global recession.^[1] Last year 54.7 per cent of companies operating in Turkey were from European Union (EU) countries. ^[2]

Interoute’s network has the highest capacity of any European network and is designed to carry video, multimedia internet traffic and bandwidth intensive digital applications. The company has followed a strategy of extending its high capacity network East and South East into emerging business markets and continually seeks to meet the demand for fibre across Europe and beyond. Interoute’s pan-European network now covers 98 cities in 28 countries. All traffic through the Istanbul PoP will be monitored by Interoute’s NOC (network operations centre) in Prague and businesses can benefit from advanced managed services including connectivity, VPN services, managed hosting, Unified Communications and VoIP solutions.

Renzo Ravaglia EVP Wholesale at Interoute, said: “Turkey is known for its heritage and history and 2010 rightly sees Istanbul take its turn as the European Capital of Culture. But equally impressive is Istanbul’s development into a key business and media hub for national and international business. As increasing numbers of European companies look to Turkey for new business opportunities the requirement for the type of high capacity, highly resilient data connectivity that Interoute specialises in, is growing.”