ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: The Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has invested $50 million in a submarine cable as part of a consortium that will put in place a high-capacity fibre-optic cable, stretching from India to Italy and France via the Middle East.

According to a press release issued here on Thursday, the consortium of nine leading telecom operators signed the construction and maintenance agreement and the supply contract of the fiber-optic cable, named I-ME-WE (India, Middle East, Western Europe) which would be the fifth in a series of similar systems.The cable will cover a distance of almost 14,000kms and the system is likely to be available for service by the end of 2009. The system will have a capacity of 3.84 terabits per second.

PTCL Executive Vice President Sher Bahadar Khan said in a statement that the project would provide effective resilience to the existing cable systems available with the PTCL to provide flawless communications to its customers within and outside Pakistan.