Pakistan’s Special Communications Organisation (SCO) has approached Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for the Long Distance International (LDI) service license, which is required for the operation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This corridor will connect Chinese western cities to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. The corridor will have fiber optic cables to ensure faster and reliable communication.
SCO has the LDI license now, which is restricted to the Kashmir region in Pakistan and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). This restricts SCO’s operations in other parts of the country. SCO applied for the nationwide license so that It can exploit the full business potential of the fiber optic link.
The request made by SCO is under consideration with PTA, sources confirmed, while adding that SCO will have to pay $0.5 million as a fee in case it gets the approval for the license.
Pakistan and China are working on fiber optic cable from the Chinese western border to Rawalpindi. This $44 million fiber optic cable is being laid between Pakistan and China and it will become another high-speed international connection to cater to the rapidly growing internet traffic needs of Pakistan.
According to the Economic Affairs Division, China has released $11.24 million for the construction of a cross-border optical fiber cable system between China and Pakistan for international connectivity of voice/data traffic under the CPEC.
When completed, this back-haul fiber optic cable will provide Pakistan with direct telecom access to China, Central Asian states, and from there to Europe and to and from the United States. The optic fiber will be laid between Rawalpindi and Khunjrab and the task of the project has been given to SCO.
This backhaul fiber optic link was planned long ago and was due for completion by the end of 2015; however, it is now under the purview of CPEC and may finally get delivered as per the promised timeline of 2017. China and Pakistan have signed agreements for upgrading the 1,300-kilometer Karakorum Highway connecting to Islamabad and laying a fiber optic cable from the Chinese border to Rawalpindi.
The Exim bank China has agreed to provide the government a concessional loan at an interest rate of 2 percent per annum for cross boarder optic fiber project.
While China would be the biggest beneficiary of this economic corridor, it is believed that Pakistan will also get some benefit in terms of enhanced security and revenue from the state of the art optic fiber project between Pakistan and China. The telecom project will be undertaken by Huawei.
Pakistan is currently connected with the world through four undersea fiber optic cables, while another four are being built and will be operational in the next couple of years.
The current international links and bandwidth capacity include: (i) TW1 with a design capacity of 1.28Tbps, (ii) Sea-Me-We-3 with 480 Gbps with two fiber pairs, (iii) Sea-Me-We-4 with a design capacity of 1.28Tbps and (iv) I-ME-WE with a design capacity of 3.86Tbps.
The under-construction international links with landing points in Pakistan are (i) AAE-1 with a design capacity of 40Tbps, (ii) Sea-Me-We-5 with a design capacity of 24Tbps, (iii) Silk Road Gateway-1 (With landing points in Karachi and Gwadar), and (iv) Pakistan-China fiber optic back-haul.
Post a Comment