TM gets MCMC contract to develop submarine cable system

PETALING JAYA: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has won a contract via open tender from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to develop a new submarine cable system, named Sistem Kabel Rakyat 1Malaysia (SKR1M) to provide upgradeable and transmission facilities by adopting state-of-the-art 100Gbps technology.
The value of the contract was not disclosed.
The new submarine cable system, that is expected to start carrying commercial traffic by mid-2017, will span about 3,500km with initial capacity of 4 Terabit per second (Tbps), and link Peninsular Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak.
"With this partnership, TM as the nation's broadband champion will be able to expand its service coverage as well as its connectivity domestically to meet the industry's ever-growing demands for IP applications," TM's CEO Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said in a statement yesterday.
He said SKR1M will improve the user experience by minimising potential traffic congestion between Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, that allows further growth in bandwidth-hungry as well as internet-based applications to flow between these areas smoothly.
The project will be established through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement between MCMC and TM, utilising the Universal Services Provision Fund (USP) under the purview of MCMC.
"This collaboration also shows TM's commitment as Malaysia's trusted ICT partner in propelling Malaysia to become a regional data hub," he said, adding that the project is part of government's initiatives to increase the capacity of high-speed broadband, as outlined by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak in Budget 2014 and 2015.
"This in turn will support future High Speed Broadband deployment, thus bridging the digital divide," he added.
TM owns more than 10 submarine cable systems that span more than 100,000 fibre route miles around the globe, including several submarine cable routes which it uses to carry traffic between Asia-Pacific region and North American region.
To date, TM's total design capacity of its international submarine cables stands at 30 Tbps, which is sufficient to cater for future international bandwidth demand increase.