Teletimes Special Report

The internet has fundamentally changed the way the world works, so much so that the governments of certain Scandinavian countries have labeled access to internet as the fundamental right of all human beings. Internet has also majorly changed the way Pakistan operates and since the year 2000, Pakistan has seen internet boom. With over 12 million dialup users and over 1 million broadband users, we are the 8th in the Asia region in terms of number of internet users beating progressive countries like Malaysia and Taiwan, in terms of number of users, and beating India in terms of broadband penetration.  The bandwidth consumption of ISPs is doubling every year. Facebook and blogging has become a part of most companies’ strategy and websites like shophives.com, beliscity.com, etc. are making a dent in Pakistan’s commerce.

In early 2005, Pakistan’s total broadband user base was a mere 15,000 users with the total bandwidth usage being 15 Gbps. By the end of 2010, the number of total broadband users is expected to rise up to 1.09 million consuming an impressive 60.4 Gbps of bandwidth (www.pta.gov.pk).
A major player behind this revolution is Transworld. Not as well known as its sister company, Mobilink, Transworld is that silent giant whose value is well known to its’ direct dependants but the rest of the country is alien to its’ significant footprint and strategic importance in Pakistan’s broadband growth.

Only a few years back, in the mid 2000’s, Pakistan internet connectivity was dependant on a government owned monopoly with an antiquated infrastructure. There was a single international connectivity provider to the ISPs and voice operators of Pakistan, leading to unsatisfactory service levels and inflated pricing, thus making quality internet connectivity expensive and beyond the reach of most consumers.

In the mid 2000’s, with the booming domestic telecom sector, and the advent of constantly increasing broadband connectivity in the developing world, a need for the provision of high quality and guaranteed uninterrupted availability of bandwidth was foreseen in Pakistan and a new competitive bandwidth market was created. This promise of a new competitive marketplace was a driving force behind Transworld’s formation. Granted a 2nd landing license in 2003, Transworld is the cornerstone of Pakistan’s broadband revolution and the key service enabler behind market makers like Wateen, Mobilink, Worldcall, Wi-tribe, Augere etc that are largely responsible for Pakistan’s broadband growth and providing the consumer market with alternatives to PTCL. “TWA embarked on this project of key strategic national importance with a vision of bringing high-speed communications technology to fuel the growth of IT and Telecom in Pakistan,” states Kamran Malik, President and Chief Operating Officer of Transworld Associates (Pvt.), Ltd.
Transworld has built a state of the art submarine cable system that connects Pakistan to two major communication hubs in the Middle East and onwards through connectivity to the world’s major communication infrastructures and provides internet and international communication connectivity to Pakistan’s ISPs, telcos and selected corporates.

Transworld Associates Private Limited (TWA) is a joint venture between Orascom Telecom of Egypt and the Saif Group of Pakistan. Transworld operates and owns its own undersea fiber optic cable system. According to Zulfiqar Qazilbash, TWA Director of Sales and Marketing, “Transworld’s business strategy is structured around offering quality, tailor made end-to-end international bandwidth solutions to customers in Pakistan. We are successful because we bend backwards to support our customers”.

Transworld is Pakistan’s first and only private submarine cable operator – the alternative carrier does not have a submarine cable system of its own but has acquired capacity in international cables passing through the region. The system, known as TW1, has a total capacity of 1.28 Tbps, which easily meets and far exceeds the needs of Pakistan currently and for the foreseeable future. Transworld’s state of the art, high quality network stretches 1,274 Km in the Arabian Sea. As Syed Amiruddin TWA Director of Engineering puts it, “TW1 offers the much needed high value international bandwidth services to the recently deregulated and rapidly developing telecom and IT sectors of Pakistan.”
Through its submarine cable and supporting infrastructure, Transworld can fulfill the requirements of Pakistan’s internet community to send emails to any internet destination, to browse content on any internet server and to establish and maintain voice or data circuits from any point in Pakistan to virtually any point on the globe. Transworld’s network is peered to all the major cables in the region like Sea-Me-We 3, Sea-Me-We 4, Flag, Falcon and Fog, to major private and public internet traffic exchanges and the leading Tier-1 providers around the globe.

Transworld’s fully resilient IP/MPLS core network, with integrated high availability, built on state of the art routers, ensures access to high performance Internet connectivity with no traffic congestions and guaranteed performance with short-hop internet content delivery via low latency paths.

Its strategic importance and impact on the market can be understood by the fact that for an ISP, bandwidth is the single largest operating expense. The quality of the bandwidth an ISP receives and how it manages that bandwidth are the most important determinant of success after price and delivery.
Transworld is not as visible to the public since it is an B2B infrastructure company. However, its impact on the market is undeniable – no one can deny that Pakistan’s quality and price of internet connectivity has improved many fold since TWA’s addition.
With the advent of Transworld, bandwidth rates saw a steep decline; a decrease of more than 300% in just 4 years. A comparative analysis shows that an STM 4 which costs US$ 150,000 in the UAE and US$ 70,000 in India, costs only US$ 60,000 in Pakistan, less than half the price of a similar circuit in Dubai and considerably lesser than neighboring India. On the usage front, bandwidth capacity needs of the market are doubling every year, the primary driver for which is broadband deployments.
Transworld has become an industry leader in providing bandwidth services to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Today, the company indirectly reaches almost all broadband and cellular users in Pakistan, serving across industries. After establishing such a strong foothold in the bandwidth industry does Transworld plans to grow and evolve further? When asked this question, Kamran Malik smiles and says, “Our mission is to become the premier bandwidth source for transfer of information and entertainment across the country and around the world.”