Haq's Musings: Silk Road

Monday, February 1, 2021

PEACE Cable: Pakistan's Highest Bandwidth Undersea Internet Connection to Africa and Europe

Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) is 96 Tbps (terabits per second), 15,000 km long, privately owned submarine cable that will originate in Karachi, Pakistan and run underwater all the way to Marseilles, France via multiple points in the continent of Africa. It is being built as part of Digital Silk Road sponsored by China. Cybernet and Jazz are the local landing and global connectivity partners of PEACE Cable System in Pakistan. It will enable high-speed access to a variety of content, cloud computing, gaming and video streaming platforms.

PEACE Undersea Cable Route. Source: Submarine Cable Networks

The laying of PEACE undersea cable in Pakistan's territorial waters will begin in March, following government approval this month for Cybernet, a local internet service provider, to construct an Arabian Sea landing station in Karachi, according to Nikkei Asia. The Mediterranean section of the cable is already being laid, and runs from Egypt to France. The 15,000 kilometer-long cable is expected to go into service later this year.

Mobile Broadband Subscriptions & Data Growth in Pakistan

A 820-kilometer long China-Pakistan fiber optic cable has already been laid between the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan in the south and the Khunjerab Pass, China in the north and operational since July, 2018. It is currently being extended to Karachi for connection to PEACE cable.

Broadband Subscriptions Growth in Pakistan. Source: PTA

When completed, PEACE cable will be Pakistan's 7th highest bandwidth, lowest latency undersea connection to the global Internet system. Currently, there are 6 international submarine cable systems connecting Pakistan, including SMW3, SMW4, SMW5, IMEWE, AAE-1 and TW1. PTCL is the landing party in Pakistan for SMW3, SMW4, AAE-1 and IMEWE cable systems, operates cable landing stations in Karachi. SMW3, SMW4 and IMEWE land at Hawksbay, while AAE-1 lands at Clifton. Transworld Associates Private Limited (Transworld, or TWA) privately owns the TW1 cable system and is a member of the SMW5 consortium. Both TW1 and SMW5 land at Hawksbay and terminate at Transworld's cable landing station in Karachi.

Mobile Data Usage in Pakistan. Source: PTA

Pakistan has experienced a huge surge in Internet traffic during the COVID19 pandemic. Cellular Mobile Data usage in the country has soared from 2,545 petabytes in 2019 to 4,498 petabytes in 2020. Total number of broadband subscriptions in the country has doubled from about 45 million in 2017 to 90 million in 2020, according to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority.

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