Minister Highlights Pakistan’s Potential of Becoming a Digital Corridor of Connectivity

The caretaker IT Minister, Dr. Umar Saif, seems to be playing an active role in uplifting the IT and telecom sectors of Pakistan. Lately, in a meeting with representatives of PTA, SCO, PTCL, Transworld, and Peace Cable, the minister said that the government is planning to make the country’s optical fiber cable network a global corridor. The implementation of the proposed project can prove to be really beneficial for Pakistan, as it can generate millions of dollars in revenue. Moreover, the minister said,

We often talk about the CPEC trade corridor, but an equally big opportunity is for Pakistan to become a digital corridor of connectivity for China, Russia, and Central Asian States with the rest of the world. We now have fiber connectivity from Kashgar to Karachi and can offer low latency connectivity for China transit traffic with the evolving network of submarine cables connecting Africa and Europe. Our digital corridor can reduce the latency from 120 ms to just 20 ms.

Global traffic can be linked to the submarine cable with the optical fiber cable up to Khunjerab, Karachi, and Gwadar. The minister said that all resources and needed facilities have been rendered for the digital corridor and that digital access to the Middle East, Central Asia, China, and Europe will soon be available at affordable rates.

The minister also highlighted that massive global digital traffic can be routed via this corridor and said that the newly formed Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) can be a great support in this mega project. Currently, there are approximately 180 thousand km of fiber cable in the country and around six thousand mobile towers are linked with it. Now, a new plan has been devised to deploy 300,000 km of optical fiber cable and connect 20 thousand towers, the minister added.

Through the expansion of the optical fiber cable, the connectivity will be quicker, and improved internet facilities will be offered to the users, the minister said.

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