Four new undersea cables to meet country's network needs, Dewan Negara told

KUALA LUMPUR: Four new undersea cables are currently under construction to help meet the network needs in Malaysia, the Dewan Negara was told today.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa said the four cables are the Bay to Bay Express (BtoBE) Cable System by Facebook in collaboration with Time Dotcom Berhad as a landing partner in Cherating in the first quarter of 2023.

"The second is the MIST Cable System by NTT in collaboration with Arus Restu Sdn Bhd as the landing partner in Morib which is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2023.

"The third is the IAX Cable System in Morib, expected to be completed by the end of 2022, and the fourth is the BaSICS Cable System by PP Telecommunication Sdn Bhd in Kuching with the expectation of completion by the end of 2022," he said.

Annuar was replying to a question from Senator Robert Lau Hui Yew.

Annuar said Malaysia was linked with 17 different submarine cable services and the existing network capacity was more than sufficient to meet future demand.

Of the 17 cables, he said four of them were in the core network category connecting Sabah and Sarawak to the outside world.

"Sarawak and Sabah are linked with two existing submarine cable systems, namely the Sistem Kabel Rakyat Malaysia (SKRM) by Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) with a current capacity of 7.4 terabits per second (Tbps) and the East-West cable system by Sacofa Sdn Bhd with a current capacity of 600 gigabits per second (Gbps)," he said.

-- BERNAMA