New subsea cable to boost Pak bandwidth

19,200-km system adds 4tbps immediately, lifts digital capacity

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan has strengthened its global digital connectivity with the deployment of the SEA-ME-WE 6 submarine cable system, a 19,200-km high-capacity fibre network linking Pakistan to countries between Singapore and France.

Offering more than 100 Tbps of total capacity, SEA-ME-WE 6 will provide one of the lowest-latency routes between Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe, according to a news release of the ministry of IT.

According to officials, the development will sharply strengthen digital connectivity and reduce latency across major tech corridors.

Under the allocation plan, Pakistan will receive 13.2 terabits per second, with 4tbps activated immediately.

Officials said the immediate jump in bandwidth will boost the country's international capacity and give vital support to cloud services, data centres, fintech operations, e-commerce platforms, streaming services and the broader digital ecosystem.

The ministry noted that SEA-ME-WE 6 incorporates "more fibre pairs and more than double the capacity" of previous iterations of the SEA-ME-WE network, increasing resilience across the heavily trafficked Asia–Europe passage.

The system's trans-Egypt geo-diversified crossings and multiple landing points are designed to add redundancy, reduce fault risk and improve service continuity.

"The system enables rapid scalability, improved fault protection and lower total network ownership costs for participating service providers, while adding an essential new redundancy layer to the global internet backbone," the statement said.