PEACE Cable International Network Co., Ltd. (PEACE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and landing party agreement with Pakistan carrier Cybernet and Djibouti Telecom during the 4th Asia-Pacific Submarine Networks Forum.
Remaining landing party agreements will also be signed within the next two weeks, representing a key milestone in the delivery plan which includes the permit application work in each country.
(left to right) Mr. Frederick Chui, SVP Global Data at PCCW, Sun Xiaohua, COO of PEACE and Mr. Danish Lakhani, CEO of Cybernet at the signing ceremony
Geographically the PEACE cable will connect the three most populated continents in the world: Asia, Africa and Europe with backbone connectivity in Pakistan, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and France providing critical interconnection to Asia, Europe, and Africa economic corridors.
Based on the shared vision of trust, cooperation, and win-win, several parties are committed to building an “Open System” concept to an efficient way for improved latency, high-capacity, and carrier-neutral bandwidth services for regional customers.
Sun Xiaohua, COO of PEACE, said: “After nearly two months of consultation, the cooperation and negotiation between the PEACE and landing partners has been completed. Thanks to all the partners for their support and I hope that PEACE will bring added economic value to the region in the near future.”
Danish A. Lakhani CEO of Cybernet, said: “We are excited about working on the PEACE project and the numerous benefits that the PEACE Cable will bring to Pakistan and its digital economy. In addition to providing much needed redundancy to Pakistan’s internet infrastructure and reducing latency to Western destinations, this ultra-high capacity cable will usher in a new era of affordable Gigabit services in the country. Furthermore, as a carrier neutral cable system, it will enable other telecom carriers, ISPs, CDN and content providers to extend its benefits across the spectrum of Pakistani society.”
Mohamed Assoweh Bouh, General Director of Djibouti Telecom said: “Djibouti Telecom’s objective is to strengthen its regional Hub position, the crossroad of three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. PEACE and DARE shall collaborate to achieve the digital and economic transformation of Republic of Djibouti.”
When will this cable strat to give us benefits?
Probably never lol
it’ll become operational in q4 2019 according to submarinecablemap dot com
A very good morning to Danish Lakhani Peace Cable for the MOU, and initiation of a new chapter in Pakistan. I remember suggesting to look for exemption from taxes for ISP, being charged to the end users. This will change a lot of things in Pakistan.
I heard Mr. Lakhani’s speech at the ISOC event. Didn’t realizes the taxes on broadband are so high!!! We pray the government of NayaPakistan wakes up and realizes this.
Is Cable Se PTCL Wale Ki Speed Achi Ho Jayegi Na ?
no
So how many fiber internet and TV box customers does Cybernet ( Storm Fiber) have? 1000 per city * 10 cities?
I am constantly amazed by these big PR events and then I try thinking about actual market growth and whether the Storm Fibers, Optixs, Wateen cable, and the other half dozen will ever be profitable? Look at World call hype and reality.
True. But this is submarine cable event held in Shenzhen which is in China and not concerning triple play that you mention above. The submarine cable business is quite profitable and you can see how Transworld and PTCL are making mega bucks because of this. But this new cable looks like it may be the Zong of internet cables.
Like you said it is profitable for *only* a couple big companies, international multi billion$ JVs, and requires a lot of capital and time to profitability. Even Multinet, that Malaysian JV doesn’t have this profitability scale.
So how many connections will a small player like Cybernet need? 3-4 years ago Cybernet declared a million $ in sales (or profit, don’t remember.) That’s peanuts even in Pakistan.
Agreed on your first point. But I would recheck the profitability of Multinet, Cybernet, Nayatel and others. All these companies have grown and I know their capex is easily into the billions of rupees (atleast 10-20M USD) so the loss and peanut numbers are probably wrong. Maybe we’ll never know as they are all private companies. You can’t do that capex without good profit, cash flow etc etc. I know Axiata guys are not stupid to invest blindly and neither are the Lakhanis of Cybernet.
You see right about private valuations- there is a lot of smoke and mirrors given no serious accountability.
It is one thing to be actually profitable, another to show it. A great example is telcos charging full 40% calling card and other tax but keeping it to themselves with the full connivance of FBR officials, so declaring profitability becomes easy !
Investors invest not for real cash flow in Pakistan; there is a lot of money laundering and fraud going on. But who will investigate their own partners ?
Will the Engro guy now go after LNG scandals which our SC and NAB don’t seem interested in?
They are still expanding their consumer networks. It’s slow going because it’s hard to get Right of Way in Pakistan. All the corrupt government departments have their hand out for bribes. If the consumer side fails they can always connect cell towers to their fibre networks and sell wholesale bandwidth to the big cellcos.
It’s actually really good for competition in Pakistan if more providers have direct access to international bandwidth. For many years now Transworld and PTCL have had a duopoly in that dept. which has kept prices high in Pakistan.
Real competition and its byproduct, innovation, doesn’t happen in Pakistan because when these “growth” projects start owing to inflow of foreign aid trickling down to junior elite in our corrupt feudal hierarchy, their business plans are inflated, customer service non existent and the focus is on obtaining loans that become NPLs.
Since 2009-10 when these small providers came to market most thetefthe have folded with new ones emerging but net growth compared with neighbors Iran and indiI is minimal.
Second fiber investment requirements are huge, in the teens of millions$, and MoUs don’t help much!
What do Seths and IPP power policy have to do with anything?
Seems like you have an ax to grind with someone. Get over your insecurities instead of expressing them here.
All deals start with MOUs. Read the story more carefully. There must be agreements to follow.
Let’s have a positive outlook to nayapakistan
“There must be agreements to follow.”
Says it all. I suggest you look at track records instead of spinning Naya Pakistan slogans ! What has all this to do with it?
Lets not be sooo negative. Something positive is happening for Pakistan.
Very true, the quantum/size of market, and number of players excluding PTCL, which PPak says Cantonment, and other major accounts stopped other service providers from accession, to protect PTCL.
Any completion time? When this cable qill be in service?