PTCL 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. 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.
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.
“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.
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 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.
