PUTRAJAYA: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) is leading a consortium of 17 international telcos to set up the US$500mil Asia-America Gateway (AAG), the first submarine cable system linking South-East Asia directly with the US.The consortium members include US-based AT&T Inc, Bharti AirTel (India), Brunei Government, British Telecom Global Network Services, CAT Telekom (Thailand), Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc (Philippines), Indosat (Indonesia) and Pacific Communications Pte Ltd (Cambodia). TM group chief executive officer Datuk Abdul Wahid Omar said the 20,000km cable system would provide a capacity of up to 1.92 terabits per second of data bandwidth.
Upon its completion in 2008, the system would initially have a capacity of 480 gigabits per second (Gbps) to meet present and future requirements for telecommunication services, he said.
“Cable construction will begin immediately and, when completed, the cable system will connect 10 locations in eight countries across the Asia-Pacific region, namely Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii with the US West Coast,” he said at the agreement signing to establish AAG yesterday.
Alcatel Submarine Network and NEC Corp have been awarded the contract to jointly construct the submarine cable.
TM, which holds 9% equity in the project, would be investing US$50mil, Wahid said.
“While we are present in 13 countries in the region and involved in seven existing major submarine cable consortiums, this initiative is still one of the biggest we have undertaken. It will provide TM with additional 60Gbps of capacity, which will help reduce any future potential congestion we may face,” he said.
Source : TheStar
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