TM awarded contract for ‘1Malaysia’ submarine cable system

• SKR1M will link Peninsular Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak
• To be financed via USP fund, which comes under purview of MCMC

TELEKOM Malaysia Bhd (TM) announced that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has awarded it a contract, via an open tender process, to develop and construct a new submarine cable system, called Sistem Kabel Rakyat 1Malaysia (the ‘1Malaysia People’s Cable System,’ or SKR1M).
 
The new submarine cable system is part of the Malaysian Government’s initiatives to increase the capacity of high-speed broadband, as outlined by Prime Minister Najib Razak in his Budget 2014 and Budget 2015 proposals, TM said in a statement.
 
SKR1M will link Peninsular Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak. The project will be established through a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement between industry regulator MCMC and TM using the Universal Services Provision Fund (USP), which comes under the purview of MCMC.
 
Financial terms were not disclosed.
 
SKR1M will serve to enhance the existing domestic submarine cable connectivity between Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak thus catering for future bandwidth growth requirements, TM said.
 
The new submarine cable system, which will span approximately 3,500km, will have an initial capacity of 4 terabits per second (Tbps).
 
“This initiative represents another major step towards enhancing the national broadband connectivity within Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak,” said TM group chief executive officer Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa (pic).
 
“With this partnership, TM … will be able to expand its service coverage as well as its connectivity domestically to meet the industry’s ever-growing demands for IP (Internet Protocol) applications.
 
“This in turn will support future high-speed broadband (HSBB) deployment, thus bridging the digital divide,” he added.
 
SKR1M is designed to provide upgradeable and transmission facilities by adopting the state-of-the-art 100Gbps technology. This new submarine cable system is expected to start carrying commercial traffic by mid-2017, TM said.
 
This bandwidth will improve user experience by minimising potential traffic congestion between Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, TM said.
 
TM owns more than 10 submarine cable systems which span more than 100,000 fibre-route miles around the globe, including several submarine cable routes that the company uses to carry traffic between Asia Pacific and North America.
 
In addition to the newly signed South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe Cable System 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5),  TM is also a member of the various consortiums for submarine cable systems in the region.
 
These include the Asia America Gateway Cable Network (AAG), South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe Cable System 3 (SEA-ME-WE3 – SMW3), SEA-ME-WE4 (SMW4), Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2), Batam-Rengit Cable System (Bright) and Batam-Dumai-Melaka Cable System (BDM), Cahaya Malaysia, including the new Bay of Bengal (BBG) cable system.
 
Additionally TM also invests in other cable systems such as Japan-US Cable Network (JUSCN), China-US Cable Network (CUSCN) and South Atlantic 3/ Western Africa Submarine Cable/ South Africa Far East (SAT-3/WASC/SAFE).
 
To date, TM’s total design capacity of its international submarine cables stands at 30 Tbps and it is sufficient to cater for future international bandwidth demand increase, the company said.
 
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