Network expansion: PTCL to invest in largest submarine cable system

AAE-1 to be completed by 2016 to meet Pakistan’s future ICT needs.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the largest information and communication technology (ICT) service provider in Pakistan, is investing in one of the largest international submarine cable consortium system, in collaboration with the leading telecom operators of the world.

The undersea cable system encompasses a multimillion dollar investment and will enable Pakistan to meet its future information communications needs.

The new cable system, Asia Africa Europe (AAE-1), will add terabits of bandwidth to PTCL’s international capacity, besides building redundancy to its existing international infrastructure on eastern and western side of the Arabian Sea.

“This global initiative marks our vision to cater for the growing broadband and data services requirements of Pakistan for both the consumer and corporate segments”, said PTCL CEO and President Walid Irshaid.

“This will be the fourth highest capacity undersea cable system of PTCL and will serve as a catalyst to stimulate growth and development in the country by providing robust, reliable and lowest latency connectivity,” he said, adding that the company had already invested in three international cable consortium systems SMW3, SMW4 and IMEWE, which act as a gateway for Pakistan to the information superhighway.

AAE-1, being one of the largest cable systems launched, will employ 100Gbps technology with wavelength add/drop branching units along the lowest latency route and a design capacity of over 40 terabits.

AAE-1 will connect Hong Kong, Singapore, Middle East, Africa and Europe and provide an alternative low latency route between Pakistan and rest of the world.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2014.

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