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Pakistan’s international connectivity has expanded to a total installed capacity of 17.21 Tbps, with 13.01 Tbps currently activated through multiple submarine cable systems operated by PTCL, TWA, Cybernet and SCO, according to PTA’s latest presentation.
The country’s digital backbone is supported by major systems including:
- AAE-1 (4.77 Tbps installed, 3.58 Tbps active)
- SMW4 (2.58/1.98 Tbps)
- IMEWE (2.76/1.9 Tbps)
- TWA1 (2.8/2.6 Tbps)
- PEACE Cable (1.6/0.8 Tbps)
- Pak-China OFC (1/0.45 Tbps)
Pakistan is digitally linked with Oman, Fujairah, France (Marseilles) and Singapore, ensuring redundancy in international routing.
The national fiber backbone spans:
- 75,967 km of long-haul OFC
- 135,506 km of metro fiber networks
The presentation highlighted fast-tracked work on the 2Africa submarine cable, stretching 45,000 km, which is being accelerated for early commissioning. Additional additions such as Africa1 (PTCL) and SMW6 (TWA) are also in progress.
Officials say the new systems will significantly boost Pakistan’s international bandwidth, reduce latency, and strengthen resilience against outages caused by regional cable cuts.
