February 22, 2022
KUALA LUMPUR – Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has joined a consortium to build the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 6 (SEA-ME-WE 6) submarine cable system that connects Malaysia to a number of countries.
In a statement today, TM said the SEA-ME-WE 6 submarine cable system would connect Malaysia with multiple countries namely Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Pakistan, Oman, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France.
TM group chief executive officer Imri Mokhtar said TM’s investment in SEA-ME-WE 6 would allow the company to address its 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.”
“The SEA-ME-WE 6 submarine cable will land at TM’s new cable landing station in Morib, the latest addition to TM’s existing four international cable landing stations in the country,” he said.
Imri also said the cable’s strategic proximity to the Klang Valley, which is close to most hyperscalers’ data centres, positions it as a key cable landing site for Malaysia.
TM’s participation in the consortium was made official with the signing of the construction and maintenance agreement with all consortium members recently.
The SEA-ME-WE 6 would provide TM with one of the lowest latency routes between Malaysia and Europe and create an additional layer of network diversity and resilience for the heavily loaded traffic between Asia and Europe.
“With its advanced technologies, open cable system concept and a design capacity of more than 100 terabytes per second, this latest investment will undoubtedly provide the consortium members with complete control over their traffic management,” Imri added.
Apart from TM, the SEA-ME-WE 6 consortium comprises multiple global players including Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun PLC, Djibouti Telecom SA, Etihad Etisalat Company, Orange, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International, Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, Sri Lanka Telecom PLC, Telecom Egypt and Trans World Associates. – Bernama