TIME gets in on APG submarine cable deal

• 10,000km international fiber optic cable system to link Malaysia to Korea and Japan
• Will sidestep Singapore gateway, reducing dependency

TIME dotCom Berhad has entered into a construction and maintenance agreement for the Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) submarine cable system connecting Malaysia to Korea and Japan.
 
Its wholly owned subsidiaries and global bandwidth business arms, Global Transit Communication Sdn Bhd and Global Transit Limited [collectively known as Global Transit], will be administering the APG on behalf of the Group, TIME said in a statement.
 
The APG is a 10,000km international fiber optic cable system that will link Malaysia to Korea and Japan with seven branches to other Asian countries. The cable system is scheduled to be ready in the third quarter of 2014.

The APG system will bridge international capacity hubs such as Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea as well as connect emerging markets such as Vietnam and China where demand for capacity is multiplying yearly. This effectively makes the APG the most strategic and widespread Asian cable system, TIME said.
 
Saiful Husni, chief executive officer of Global Transit, said the Group’s investment in the APG cable system completes its Asean-to-USA connectivity route.
 
“Combining TIME’s Malaysia-wide fiber network, Global Transit’s regional network nodes, ownership in the trans-pacific Unity cable, and now the APG system, the TIME Group has a complete land and sea fiber network footprint to capture the high-growth bandwidth demand in Asia,” he said.

“One advantage is that we have a global network system landing directly into Malaysia. This lowers our dependency on Singapore as the main gateway for Internet traffic. We can now channel high volumes of this traffic on our network with the lowest latency, directly to the United States,” he claimed.
 
Demand for bandwidth from Indo-China and South-East Asia is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 44%, from around 2,862 Gbps in 2011 to an expected 24,000 Gbps in five years, TIME said, citing a Telegeography report.
 
 
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