Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has said that it 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.
Spanning approximately 25,000 KMs, the AAE-1 submarine cable will be
one of the first cable systems connecting Hong Kong, Singapore, Middle
East, Africa and Europe and provide an alternative low latency route
between Pakistan and rest of the world.
The new cable system, Asia Africa Europe (AAE-1), will be adding
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.
Sayyed Muhammad Imran Ali, PTCL Executive Vice President (EVP)
International Business Relations and Essa Khalifa Alsuwaidi, PTCL
Executive Vice President (EVP) International Investments & Capacity
Sales represented PTCL at the signing ceremony.
“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 Walid Irshaid, President &
CEO, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
“This will be the fourth high 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.
The company has already invested in three international cable consortium
systems SMW3, SMW4 and IMEWE, which act as a gateway for Pakistan to
the information superhighway”, added Walid Irshaid.
AAE-1 is one of the largest cable systems launched and will employ
100Gbps technology with wavelength add/drop branching units along the
lowest latency route and a design capacity of over 40 terabits.
The seventeen major carriers including China Unicom, Chuan Wei,
Djibouti Telecom, Etisalat, Mobily, Omantel, OTEGLOBE, Ooredoo, PCCW
Global, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), Telecom
Egypt, TOT, Viettel and some other carriers, have signed the
Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) in Hong Kong on
January 27, 2014 to officially mark the commencement of the AAE-1
Project.
Additionally, having two diversified Points of Presence (PoP) in Asia
(Hong Kong and Singapore) and three onward connectivity options in
Europe (via France, Italy and Greece) will provide the requisite
flexibility for these carriers and their customers.
The target completion date for AAE-1 cable construction is the year
2016. When completed, it will connect Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen,
Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France.