wiredinUSA May 2019

Finance appointment

DARE to connect

Meshal Al-Naqbi

Image: Google maps

Djibouti Telecom, Somtel and SubComhave announced that the marine survey for the Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE1) submarine cable system is complete. The cable route has been finalized with an additional landing station in Bosaso, Somalia. Bosaso is a port city in Puntland, and is the region’s commercial capital. The two fiber- pair repeatered Bosaso segment of the DARE1 cable is 108km and will be equipped with a switched wavelength management unit. The Bosaso branch represents one branch off the cable system’s three fiber- pair trunk, where each pair has a capacity of 40 channels at 300Gbps. The DARE1 cable system is the first step in a planned expansion into eastern Africa to connect Djibouti, Bosaso, Mogadishu (Somalia) and Mombasa (Kenya). With a finalized route length of 4,747km, DARE1 will deliver up to 36Tbps of capacity to East Africa. Manufacturing of the undersea cables and repeaters began in April 2019 and the system is expected to be ready for commercial traffic in June 2020.

Ducab has appointed Mr Meshal Al-Naqbi to the position of chief financial officer, to take responsibility for the management of the company’s global finance operations. Al-Naqbi has served as deputy CFO at Ducab since 2016. Dr Ahmad Bin Hassan Al Shaikh, Ducab chairman, said of the appointment: “Ducab [is] committed to continuous career development for all employees, and promotion from within. The Ducab board have closely followed Meshal’s career since he joined Ducab in 2016 as part of the company’s active development of Emirati professionals. We are delighted to be able to recognize his experience and development with this promotion to CFO.” Dr Al Shaikh also paid tribute to Mr Arif Choksy, the outgoing CFO: “Arif has been Ducab CFO since 2001, and …I am pleased that he will be staying in Ducab to continue his work developing our future strategy, and guiding the company’s continued expansion into new industries and global markets.”

wiredInUSA - May 2019

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