DUBAI, 29 March 2004 — Saudi Telecom Company along with 15 other national telecommunication service providers signed an agreement here on Saturday to develop the next generation underwater cable system for high-speed data communications. The “SMW4” (or SEA-ME-WE 4) submarine cable system will stretch nearly 20,000 km from Singapore to France. With a capacity of one terabit per second data transfer, it is to be commissioned in the third quarter of next year. The $500 million contract to build and install SMW4 has been won by a consortium of Alcatel Submarine Networks of France and Fujitsu Ltd. of Japan. The other national telecom providers are from the UAE, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Italy and France.