GILGIT: The Special Communications Organisation (SCO), a public sector telecommunications service provider in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan, has claimed that it has completed all the groundwork to introduce 3G and 4G internet services in GB.

An SCO official told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the organisation had installed all the required equipment on its towers across the region for the purpose.

However, he said the SCO was waiting for the federal government`s approval for providing the 3G/4G services to GB. He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif might announce launching of internet services during his expected visit to the region this month.

The SCO would participate in the auction of 3G/4G spectrum as soon as the federal government holds it, he said.

The official said the SCO optic fiber between Rawalpindi and GB often got damaged due to landslides and people faced disconnection in internet service, but after completion of the 800 kilometres long new optic fiber being laid from China to Pakistan along the KKH would help remove this problem. He said the laying of optic fiber up to Gilgit was likely to complete this year.

Till completion of the new optic fiber, the SCO would launch 3G/4G internet services through the already existing optic fiber, he added.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had performed the groundbreaking of the Pakistan-China Fiber Optic Project in Gilgit in May, last year.

The optic fiber project is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which will be completed at an estimated cost of $44 million.

At the launching, it was claimed that the optic fiber project would bring 3G and 4G internet services to Gilgit-Baltistan.