Telekom Malaysia (TM) has announced its participation in a consortium to build the (SEA-ME-WE 6) submarine cable system which links Malaysia with multiple countries including Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Oman, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and France.
The submarine cable will provide TM with one of the lowest latency routes between Malaysia and Europe, and it provides an additional layer of network diversity and resilience for heavy traffic between the two regions. TM added with the advanced technology, open cable system concept, and a design capacity of more than 100Tbps, the latest investment will provide consortium members with complete control over their traffic management.
Besides TM, there are other consortium participants including Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), Bharti Airtel Ltd. (Bharti Airtel), Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun PLC (Dhiraagu), Djibouti Telecom SA (Djibouti Telecom), Etihad Etisalat Company (Mobily), Orange (France), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel), Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT), Telecom Egypt (TE) and Trans World Associates (TWA).
Prior to this, TM has also made investments in other submarine cable systems for various international cable routes including SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 4, and SEA-ME-WE 5. TM currently owns and leases 30 submarine cable systems spanning more than 320,000 km globally.
Commenting on the investment, TM Group CEO Imri Mokhtar said, “TM has always been at the forefront in making Malaysia the ideal gateway for connecting our country to the world, as well as enabling global technology players to deliver innovative digital services to Malaysia. Submarine cable expansion remains a key element in achieving this goal.
“Our investment in SEA-ME-WE 6 will allow us to address our capacity requirements to cater for increasing future digital demand across Asia and Europe while continuing to provide reliable, diversified, and uninterrupted global connectivity solutions to customers. It will also allow TM to support the deployment of hyperscalers’ data centres as well as the future requirements of 5G network in the country.”
He shared that the new SEA-ME-WE 6 submarine cable will land at TM’s new cable landing station in Morib, Selangor and it’s their latest addition to TM’s four other international cable landing sites. Its location in the Klang Valley is close to most hyperscalers’ data centres, making it a key cable landing site for Malaysia.
The previous SEA-ME-WE 3 cable lands at Penang and Mersing, while SEA-ME-WE 4 and SEA-ME-WE 5 lands in Melaka.
The new submarine cable system is 19,200km long and will have more fibre pairs to provide more than double the capacity compared to previous SEA-ME-WE cables. It is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025.
Imri also said the new submarine cable investment will help realise TM’s aspiration to establish Malaysia as a regional digital hub by facilitating more submarine cables to land in Malaysia. It also demonstrates TM’s commitment to the MyDigital initiative. Under MyDigital, Malaysia aims to have the most submarine cable landings in Southeast Asia by 2025.
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