July 29, 2006	Saturday	Rajab 2, 1427

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GILGIT, July 28: The Special Communication Organisation (SCO) has started testing cellular phone service here ahead of its formal launch on August 14. Speaking in a radio talk show on Friday, SCO’s sector commander Brig Abid Hussain Bhatti said that the organisation had been endeavouring to provide modern telecommunications to the people of the area since 1976. He said government had provided Rs880m to SCO to improve the area’s connectivity, including internet and mobile phone, and work on these projects was underway.

He said the Northern Areas was being linked with regular telephone lines and China through an optic-fibre connection, adding that it had almost been completed except the last eight kilometres out of its 412km length that was damaged between Balakot and Kaghan after last year’s earthquake.

“We have covered this gap through microwave circuiting and we will get 630 additional channels after the new installation. We have gotten funds to divert this along the Karakoram Highway to avoid its passing through quake-prone areas”, Brig Bhatti said.

He said they had linked Gilgit, Chilas and Henna through optic-fiber and work was under way to link other districts.

He refuted the rumours about installation of outdated machinery and said that modern equipment, used by the majority of private cellular companies in the country, had been installed.

He said they faced problems in laying communication network in hilly areas as the rough terrain created ‘dead zones’. He said that so far, they had provided 9,440 phone connections in the Gilgit area and were expanding telecommunication base to the rural areas and were installting 26 digital exchanges.

“The exchange buildings are being made quake-proof and from next week, consumers will not encounter congestion encountered while dialling ‘zero’ as we are increasing channels,” he said.

Brig Bhatti said they would offer cellular phone service at cheaper rates than other private companies and once optic-fiber network was completed, they planned to open cyber cafes.