Special Communication Organisation (SCO) on Friday signed GSM mobile network and line transmission projects worth Rs 327 million with a Chinese company Huawei Technologies to extend GSM mobile phone facility to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Northern Areas.
The project will initially cover 50,000 subscribers and would expand its network to 200,000 subscribers in the next two to three years.
The project costing Rs 300 million will be completed within one year.
The line transmission project will enable the SCO to interconnect Manshera, Kaghan, Chilas, Gilgit on fibre optics/line transmission STM 16 system. It will also enable the SCO to connect its Northern Areas subscribers/existing systems through a reliable media of fibre optics, for which the work is likely to begin in near future. The project cost is Rs 27 million and would be completed within eight months.
SCO Director General Major General Waheed Akhtar Malik signed the projects on behalf of SCO, whereas Wang Wei Jun, CEO, Huawei Technologies Pakistan, signed on behalf of Huawei Technologies.
Earlier, the same Chinese company had successfully completed WLL, Switching, MW and Satellite System project to connect Northern Areas on direct dialing with rest of the country.