Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and China Telecom Global (CTG) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which will make it possible for establishment of an optical fibre network that will run through many underserved areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.
The MoU was signed by PTCL Chief Business Development Officer Sikandar Naqi, and China Telecom Global Executive Vice President Network Operations Donald Tan at a ceremony held recently at China Telecom Global Headquarters in Hong Kong.
Speaking on the occasion, Sikandar said, “This is an important milestone in our digital connectivity links. Our ongoing collaboration represents a strategic development which will create a number of business opportunities of mutual interest including IP bandwidth, capacity on Submarine Cables and establishment of optical fiber cable (OFC) links.”
The MoU will enable PTCL to deploy a new OFC link connecting China via Gilgit to Rawalpindi and Peshawar from where it would be connected to the PTCL national OFC backbone. The collaboration will enable China to extend carrier connectivity to Pakistan as well as neighbouring countries.
At present, PTCL’s optical fibre network extends till Chitral and Kohistan Districts of KPK. PTCL has aggressive plans to extend the cable network to Gilgit through two different routes. An optical fibre link exists between Besham and Dassu. The extended PTCL OFC link will connect Gilgit to Rawalpindi and Peshawar from where it would be connected to the PTCL national OFC backbone. This collaboration will allow Chinese carriers to establish connectivity to neighbouring countries through PTCL’s terrestrial OFC link and major European destinations through PTCL’s established submarine cables infrastructure including SEA-ME-WE-3, SEA-ME-WE-4, IMEWE and AAE-1, which offer extremely low latency compared to the existing solutions.