Cybernet Pakistan and Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) Cable International Network Company Ltd. have signed a landing party agreement under which Pakistan will get its first open access, carrier-neutral submarine cable.
The new cable will enhance the country’s internet infrastructure capacity by 96 terabits per second. According to a press release, the agreement was signed on April 16 in Cairo.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding the project was inked in 2018. The PEACE cable system will interconnect the economic corridors of Europe, Asia, and Africa with landings in Djibouti, Pakistan, Kenya, Egypt, and France.
It is a 12000 km-long, privately owned cable system that offers flexible, open, and carrier-neutral service to its customers. In the first phase, the system will connect Asia, Europe, and Africa. PEACE is projected to complete the project in the first quarter of 2020.
The project will allow carriers to cover the local population and offer them gigabit speeds. It will help in meeting the persistently growing bandwidth demand from mobile and fixed broadband users in Pakistan and neighboring countries.
“The system design will adopt the latest 200G technology and WSS technology, which provides the capability to transmit over 16 terabits per fiber pair, servicing growing regional capacity needs,” states the press release.
Cybernet, a PEACE Cable Landing Station Partner in Pakistan, will deploy the PEACE Pakistan Cable Landing Station (CLS) and manage its operations.
It will also build Pakistan’s first carrier-neutral cable landing station for PEACE cable in Karachi. Cybernet Pakistan CEO Danish Lakhani said on the occasion,
We are humbled to be able to contribute in bringing a submarine cable system that will have an outsized impact on the digital landscape in Pakistan. PEACE is the only cable system that originates in Pakistan and connects 3 continents (Asia, Africa and Europe) and elevates our country’s strategic standing in the global connectivity race. This ultrahigh capacity cable will boost available bandwidth to meet current and future requirements of Pakistan and that of neighboring countries. With its ultra-low latency design, the cable will cut down transit time between Pakistan and France to under 90 milliseconds – dramatically improving the response time of internet-based applications and the experience of our users. The cable will also bolster the redundancy of our country’s connectivity to the rest of world. At Cybernet, our vision is to create an enabling environment for Pakistan’s digital landscape where ISPs, carriers, CDNs, content providers and virtually all IT enabled firms can extend affordable services to our citizens – while contributing to increasing GDP, IT exports and total factor productivity. The PEACE cable system will contribute significantly in bringing us closer to achieving this vision.
Wu Qianjun, Vice president of Hengtong and CEO of PEACE Cable, said,
PEACE is the first privately owned submarine cable system from China. We see the PEACE project as a strategic pivot for the HENGTONG Group – to obtain our experience as a subsea cable investor and look forward to identifying new investing opportunities in this market in the future. We are extremely excited to cooperate with Cybernet as our landing partner in Pakistan for PEACE. It’s the power of this cooperation that is spearheading the deployment and commercialization of better connectivity between Asia, Africa and Europe.
PEACE Cable International Network Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Hengtong Group. Hengtong Group is a Global innovative enterprise group with Headquarters in China, which services in the field of information and communication, electricity transmission, energy mineral, financial, real estate, trade, and investment.
With wholly owned and holding more than 70 companies, including 3 listed companies in Indonesia Stock Exchange, HKEx and Shanghai stock exchange, Hengtong has not only industry bases in 10 provinces and cities in China, and 10 research and development industry bases(located in Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, India, Germany, Egypt) around the world, but also marketing and technical service companies in more than 30 overseas countries and regions.at the same time, the products are widely used in more than 140 countries and areas.
It is also the largest leading enterprises in the field of Chinese optical fiber network construction and operation and maintenance services, top 500 enterprises of China, top 100 Chinese private enterprises, top 3 global fiber optic communications manufacturer.
It occupies 15% of the global market of fiber optic network. The revenue of Hengtong group reached to 15 billion dollars in 2018 and ranks No.1 in optic communication industry in China.