Dr. Umar Saif, the acting IT minister, on Friday presented a plan to divert Chinese internet traffic through Pakistan, paving the way for a quicker and more direct path to Europe.
– IT Minister and Telecom Operators Meeting:
In order to discuss the proposed project, the minister spoke before a group of members from pertinent organisations, including the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Special Communication Organisation (SCO), and several telecom companies.
The goal of the project is to establish a different route via which China might link to Europe via Pakistan, opening up the possibility of significant economic gains for that nation. Combining the current network of optical fibre cables, which runs from Khunjerab to Karachi, with a submarine cable for Chinese traffic is one of the project’s essential components. The IT Minister continued by saying that this should improve connectivity and internet traffic flow.
– Role of Special Investment Facilitation Council Forum:
Dr. Saif emphasised the project’s potential economic advantages, forecasting multi-million dollar opportunities for Pakistan. Additionally, he emphasised the Special Investment Facilitation Council Forum’s essential contribution to the industry’s cutting-edge activities in the IT and telecom sectors.
The extension of Pakistan’s optical fibre cable network, according to the minister, is the project’s main objective. At the moment, the nation has 6,000 mobile towers and about 180,000 kilometres of fibre cable. The minister plans to build 20,000 towers and increase the length of the optical fibre cable network to 300,000 kilometres; this would strengthen the total telecom infrastructure and considerably improve connectivity.
The minister also addressed concerns about the right-of-way policy that telecom carriers have. In order to ensure that operations in the sector run more smoothly, he emphasised the significance of removing barriers to the early implementation of this strategy.