The Special Communications Organisation (SCO) has approached Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to get Long Distance International (LDI) service licence as required for operation on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), it is learnt.
At present, SCO LDI license is restricted to Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), due to which it cannot operate in other parts of the country. The organisation is pleading that LDI license may be granted to it in view of its role / operation on CPEC and to exploit full business potential.
The request is under consideration with PTA, sources confirmed, while adding that SCO will have to pay $0.5 million as fee in case it gets the approval for the license.
Pakistan and China are working on fibre-optic cable from the Chinese border to Rawalpindi. This $44 million fibre 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 Affaires Division, China has released $11.24 million for construction of cross-border optical fibre cable (OFC) system between China and Pakistan for international connectivity of voice / data traffic under the CPEC.
When completed, this back-haul fibre optic cable will provide Pakistan with a direct telecom access to China, Central Asian states and from there to Europe and to and from the United States. The optic fibre will be laid between Rawalpindi and Khunjrab and the task of the project has been given to SCO.
This back haul fibre optic link was planned long ago and was due for completion by end 2015; however, it is now under the purview of CPEC and may finally get delivered as per promised timeline of 2017. China and Pakistan have signed agreements for up-gradation of 1,300-kilometre Karakorum Highway connecting to Islamabad and laying a fibre-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 fibre project, official added.
Pakistan will greatly benefit in terms of enhanced security and revenue from the state of the art optic fibre project between Pakistan and China, which will be undertaken by Huawei, officials added.
Pakistan is currently connected with the world through four undersea fibre 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 design capacity of 1.28Tbps, (ii) Sea-Me-We-3 with 480 Gbps with two fibre pairs, (iii) Sea-Me-We-4 with design capacity of 1.28Tbps and (iv) I-ME-WE with design capacity of 3.86Tbps.
The under construction international links with landing points in Pakistan are (i) AAE-1 with design capacity of 40Tbps, (ii) Sea-Me-We-5 with design capacity of 24Tbps, (iii) Silk Road Gateway-1 (With landing points in Karachi and Gwadar) and (iv) Pakistan-China fibre optic back-haul.
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