*LAHORE: *Pakistan is expected to receive a significant boost in internetspeed with the addition of an upcoming submarine cable called PEACE cablewith landing routes in Karachi and Gwadar.

This submarine cable which is expected to be active by end of 2019 willhave over 60 Tb capacity and is expected to stretch to Africa and Europe.

It is named PEACE (Pakistan East Africa Cable Express) and is a jointventure between Huawei Technologies and Global Marine SystemsLimited, Huawei Marine Networks.

In its first phase, PEACE will comprise a 6,200km network connectingPakistan (in Gwadar and Karachi), Djibouti, Somalia, and Kenya. It willeventually span 13,000km, reaching South Africa and Egypt.

According to sources, Pakistan’s leading cellular provider Jazz andinternet service provider (ISP) Cybernet have been shortlisted as theintended landing parties for the PEACE cable in Pakistan.

Recently a high-level conference organized by PCCW Global, PEACE and HuaweiMarine held in Dubai was attended by all the leading international landingparties, which was said to be a major success.

This system, designed by Chinese company Tropic Science, depends on 200Gdense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology – used to increasebandwidth on fiber networks by transmitting multiple signals at once, atdifferent wavelengths but on the same fiber.

The system was designed to deliver a capacity of up to 60Tbps.

Currently, Pakistan is served by six submarine cables and has sufferedfrequent internet outages which have left services crippled across thecountry in the recent past.