TM EXPANDS ITS GLOBAL NETWORK CONNECTIVITY WITH SEA-ME-WE-5 SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEM

The Company establishes consortium with global telcos to increase its international capacity to cater to the growing demand of HSBB consumption for local & global customers

Kuala Lumpur. 7 March 2014.Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) today formed an alliance together with fifteen (15) leading global telcos to set up a consortium for the establishment of a new state-of-the-art submarine cable system –the South East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 5 or better known as SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable system. The submarine cable system will connect three (3) continents – Asia, Africa and Europe.

The collaboration was made official with the signing of the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) for the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system between the consortium members which consist of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), China Mobile International Limited (CMI), China Telecommunications Global Limited (CTG), China United Network Communications Group Company Limited (CU), Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, PJSC,  (du), Orange (formerly France Telecom – FT), Myanmar Post and Telecom (MPT), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (Telin), Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT), Telecom Italia Sparkle (TIS), TOT Public Company Limited, Yemen International Telecommunications Co. (TeleYemen) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM).

The members of the consortium to establish SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable system pose for the album together with Datuk Che Azemi Haron, Deputy Chief Secretary II, Ministry of Communications & Multimedia (9th from left), Dato’ Sri Dr. Halim Shafie, Chairman of TM (10th from left) and Datuk Bazlan Osman, Group Chief Financial Officer, TM (8th from left).

The signing ceremony was witnessed by Datuk Che Azemi Haron, Deputy Chief Secretary II, Ministry of Communications and Multimedia who represented YB Dato’ Sri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Minister of Communications & Multimedia and Dato’ Sri Dr. Halim Shafie, Chairman of TM. Also present were Datuk Bazlan Osman, Group Chief Financial Officer / Executive Director, TM and Rozaimy Rahman, Executive Vice President, Global & Wholesale, TM.

Speaking at the event, Datuk Che Azemi Haron said, “Today’s collaboration would certainly bring enormous benefits to the nation’s ICT development initiatives in line with the Government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) for EPP10 - "Extending the Regional Network" as well as National Key Economic Area (NKEA) for the Communications Content and Infrastructure (CCI) sector in improving communications infrastructure and the uptake of services. This plays a major role in making the digital lifestyle a reality for all Malaysians whereby, the Internet will easily be accessible and serves as an enabler for people living in Asia, Africa and Europe to experience the socio-benefits of an interconnected life. Interconnection has made a huge impact to the lives of people around the globe both economically and socially.”

“Prospects are even more exciting with the creation of SEA-ME-WE-5 submarine cable system. Connectivity would be further enhanced via the expansion of its capacity. Seamless connectivity while accessing the Internet will ensure end users enjoy hours of pleasurable surfing. This is in-line with the Government’s initiative to develop Malaysia to become an Information Exchange. This collaboration also shows TM’s commitment as Malaysia’s trusted ICT partner in propelling Malaysia to become an international service provider,” added Datuk Che Azemi Haron.

Commenting on the collaboration, Dato’ Sri Dr. Halim said, “As customer experience is TM’s top priority, the higher bandwidth capacity brought by this cable system via utilising the latest state-of-the-art 24Tbps (Terabits per second) with the latest 100Gbps (Gigabits per second) wavelength technology will provide better user experience of enhanced  Internet speed and quality. The resilient connectivity of SEA-ME-WE-5 will not only benefit TM, but the nation as a whole.”

“The alliance sealed today also marks part of TM’s initiatives in further supporting the Government's National Broadband Plan and the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) that is ‘Extending the Regional Network’ in-line with the development of Malaysia by year 2020,”
added Dato’ Sri Dr. Halim Shafie.

SEA-ME-WE 5 will provide seamless connectivity with the capability of originating or terminating traffic from the Points-of-Presence (POPs) in Singapore (Equinix and Global Switch) as well as in France (Marseilles) and Italy (Palermo) whereby the terrestrial link will be also part of the SEA-ME-WE 5 system. Malaysia will be one of the landing countries which will serve TM’s future business needs especially its organic IP traffic.

With a total distance spanning approximately 20,000 km, SEA-ME-WE 5 submarine cable system will provide extensive connectivity to 17 countries in South East Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Europe namely Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Djibouti, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, France as well as Malaysia. SEA-ME-WE 5 will also provide an alternative route to Europe for TM’s IP traffic which is currently mostly dependant on the network to the USA. Past catastrophic failures in the Asia Pacific region due to earthquake or tsunami had given impact to TM’s services.

SEA-ME-WE 5 is designed to provide upgradable and transmission facilities by adopting the state-of-the-art 100Gbps technology. When fully loaded, the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system is able to carry 24Tbps of capacity, equivalent of transmitting about 4800 high-definition (HD) movies every second.

This new submarine cable system is expected to start carrying commercial traffic by early 2016.

TM owns 13 in service submarine cable systems, which span more than 60,000 fiber-route miles around the globe, including several submarine cable routes that the Company utilises to carry traffic between Asia-Pacific region and North American region.

TM is also a member of the various consortiums for submarine cable systems in the region, which include 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).

For more information on TM, visit www.tm.com.my.