E-Paper
India, Pakistan to be linked via cable
Pakistan will be linked to India with a cable laid through the Wagah border as part of an international system.
Pakistan will be linked to India with a cable laid through the Wagah border as part of an international system, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said.
"All work in this regard has been completed at our end. We are waiting for the Indian government to grant permission to its telecom carriers, which we hope will be soon," Aziz said at the inaugural ceremony of the South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable on Tuesday.
Pakistan will have five international links by the middle of next year and this includes, besides SEA-ME-WE 3 and 4, two new undersea cable links and a terrestrial fibre optic link with India, he was quoted as saying.
SEA-ME-WE 4 is a consortium of 16 international telecommunication companies for a new cable system linking Asia with Europe via the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.
It has terminal stations in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has invested $30.41 million in the project.
He said the SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable covers 20,000 kilometres and is expected to ultimately take the data transfer rate to 1.28 terabits per second, adding increased bandwidth will benefit Internet service providers, carriers and multinational corporations.
