Pakistan has now been connected to a new submarine cable network, AAE-1, that links different countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.
The Asia-Africa-Europe-1 internet system has launched operations with connecting countries from Europe to the Far East, the AAE-1 consortium has announced. The internet infrastructure is supported by a 25,000-kilometer submarine cable system which is being called the world’s largest submarine cable system built in more than a decade. The cable is being termed as the first such cable to connect countries in major Asian, African, Middle Eastern and European regions. The cable has a total of 21 international terminal stations of which 19 are now connected.
Being commissioned, the cable now provides the lowest latency express route for internet connecting more than a dozen countries in three continents. The underwater cable will have a route from Hong Kong and Vietnam in the far east, connecting, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and all the way to France in Europe.
The AAE-1 consortium is collaborating with different internet services providers in these countries including China Unicom, CIL (HyalRoute), Djibouti Telecom, Etisalat, GT5L, Mobily, Omantel, Ooredoo, OTEG, PCCW, Reliance Jio, Retelit, Telecom Egypt, TeleYemen, TOT, Viettel, VNPT and VTC. From Pakistan, PTCL is a part of the consortium. Right now this cable has the most highest design capacity that connects Pakistan with the outside world.
The cable has a minimum design capacity of 40 terabytes per second across 5 fiber pairs. Initially being designed on 100 gigabit per second technology, the cable can be upgraded to higher bandwidths in future.
