Indonesia, Malaysia Sign Sea Cable Telecom System Project

Indonesia, Malaysia sign sea cable telecom system project

JAKARTA, May 14 (Xinhua) — Publicly listed telecommunications company PT Telkom Indonesia and Malaysia’s Telecom Malaysia Berhad Friday signed an agreement on an 8.7 million US dollars submarine cable system project.

Under the agreement, a consortium involving Japan’s NEC Corp. will build the sea cable communications system spanning 160 kilometers across the Strait of Malacca, connecting Dumai in Indonesia and Malacca state in Malaysia.

The agreement was signed by Telkom Indonesia network business director Abdul Haris, Telecom Malaysia network services senior vice president Moh Yahya and NEC’s underwater network division general manager, Toru Hamanaka.

Yahya said the Dumai-Malacca Cable System (DMCS) would provide a highly effective system of communication, as the network would take advantage of new fiber optic telecommunications technology.

“The underwater cable telecommunications network has faced many troubles but new technology will eliminate these problems,” he was quoted by state news agency Antara as saying.

Abdul Haris said the telecommunications project, which will provide transmission of 20 Gbps (gigabits per second), which is equal to 241,921 telephone calls made at the same time, was expected to be completed in December.

“The new telecommunications system will have a transmission capacity of 20 Gbps in the first phase, which will be stepped up to 320 Gbps, the equivalent of some 3,870,720 simultaneous phone calls,” he said.