Planning Commission Thursday approved PC-1 for up-gradation and replacement of SCO’s GSM Network in AJ&K worth Rs 1.45 billion thus paving the way for NGMS (3G/4G) spectrum auction in AJK down the line.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), on the request from AJ&K and GB Council, has decided to auction spectrum for 3G/4G services in AJ&K and GB in the future. However, with the existing network, it was not possible for SCO to upgrade the network to 3G and 4G technologies.
Inability of SCO’s adoption of 3G/4G network was a major hurdle in auctioning of 3G and 4G licenses for AJK, which is now likely to get removed.
SCO’s GSM network of AJ&K had met its life-cycle in 2014, while existing capacity has been fully utilized, therefore there was a dire need of technology up-gradation and capacity enhancement of GSM network in AJK, before the launch of 3G/4G services.
Planning Commission, Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform, in its Central Development Working Party (CDWP) meeting, chaired by Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal, gave the green-signal to SCO for the up-gradation of its GSM network.
The project titled “Replacement of GSM Network AJ&K “ was submitted by the Special Communication Organization at a cost of Rs. 1.450 billion financed through PSDP.
The main purpose of the project is to carry out replacement of existing equipment which has underwent serious technical faults in the past couple of years having no warranty support from vendor and is obsolete.
The required software for the GSM network was upgraded from time to time but not the hardware, therefore, core network elements had become obsolete and will be upgraded through this new funding.
SCO was also tasked to take care of following observations:
The project is reportedly designed to carry out replacement of existing CS & PS Core Billing SMSC and part of Access Network of GSM system installed in AJ&K which has underwent serious technical faults in the past having no warranty/ support from vendor and it obsolete.
Below elements are going to be incorporated in SCO’s GSM network:
Below budget was approved for SCO’s network replacement: