Undersea cable link restored, says PTCL

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) President Junaid Khan said on Friday that the fault in the marine cable had been fixed and Internet services had been restored. Addressing a press conference on Friday, Junaid said the SEA-ME-WE-3 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe) cable had been rectified within 11 days and PTCL would adopt alternative measures in the feature to avoid such breakdowns. He said that PTCL had got 150 percent additional space in the satellite which would help alternative arrangements if such a breakdown occurred again. The PTCL president said that the SEA-ME-WE-3 cable would be placed along side the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable in October and November this year. He said that the fault in the cable occurred on June 27, 2005 and all arrangements to fix the fault in the cable were adopted by the consortium. He said that two cables ships were hired to locate and fix the fault and those ships and the crews faced severe weather owing to the monsoon. Mr Khan said the breakdown was the first of its kind over the five years of operation of the cable in Pakistan. Though minor faults occurred in the past in other sections of the SEA-ME-SE3, their impact was not felt due to the availability of other options, he said. He said the terrestrial link with India by replacing the existing analogue system with optical fibre system was also under discussion with the ETISALAT of the United Arab Emirates. Mr Khan said that maximum capacity available on INTELSAT was hired to provide a backup. He said there weren’t any other technical arrangements available to PTCL and in this short time it was impossible to use any other satellite. staff report

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