British Telecom (BT) has donated four satellite communication sets worth Rs 140 million to Pakistani government for earthquake affected areas. The VSAT satellite communication equipment are already functioning in the quake-hit region.
Where they were deployed by the British Telecom to facilitate communication links which collapsed in the wake of the disaster, said a press release on Friday.
This was announced following a ceremony at the Ministry of Information Technology where IT secretary Farrakh Qayyum and Paul Falkner, general manager BT Global Solution, inked an agreement for the formal hand over of the equipment to the Special Communication Organisation.
Talking to newsmen, Farrakh Qayyum said that of the four sets, one had been installed at the SCO headquarters in Rawalpindi and the remaining were functioning at Athmukam, Chakothi and Chinari points.
Each set was fully self-sufficient with its own power generator and provides eight telephone lines plus Internet access up to 512Kbit/s. This enabled free calls to any UK or world-wide destination, and also voice communications between sites in Pakistan and to the users on the SCO and PTCL networks.
The secretary pointed out that initially services were provided as an arrangement through equipment satellite and the hub was located in UK, meaning that even local call of Pakistani numbers from the VSAT station had to be routed through UK.
He said the British Telecom had not only decided to donate the VSAT equipment, it had also agreed to provide further supplies worth 150,000 UK pounds to enable the system to work with SCO Alcatel hub over Paksat satellite bandwidth.
"This will allow permanent integration of the VSAT system with the SCO's existing network in transparent manner," he said, adding that the additional equipment being supplied by the BT as donation included seven satellite modems and co-polar feeds for the VSAT antennas. Support from help desk would also be provided by the BT.
Speaking on the occasion, Paul Falkner said his company was honoured to have played its part in the rehabilitation and restoration work that followed the earthquake tragedy in the quake-hit areas. He said his company was also planning to expand further its programmes, including human resource capacity building initiatives, in collaboration with the government of Pakistan.