Telekom Malaysia and TIME dotCom (TdC) have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of a new submarine cable, tentatively named Sistem Kabel Rakyat 1Malaysia (SKR1M), the Star Online writes. The submarine cable project, which was awarded to TM by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) via a public-private-partnership agreement in 2014, aims ‘to improve the quality of the internet connection in East Malaysia’. The new 3,500km cable system, designed to have an initial capacity of 4Tbps, will land in Mersing, Kuching, Bintulu, Miri, Kota Kinabalu and Cherating; the cable is scheduled to be ready for service (RFS) by 2017. While an auction for the supply, delivery and implementation of the SKR1M project is set to be launched shortly, the parties are also expected to develop principles for the construction and maintenance agreement (C&MA), by establishing the rules governing the implementation and management of SKR1M. TM is currently contracted to operate and maintain the cable network for 20 years, in addition to taking charge of the construction of the six submarine cable landing stations.
Pakistan’s Trans World Associates (TWA) has inked an agreement to join the SEA-ME-WE-5 consortium, which aims to build and operate a new 20,000km international fibre-optic route with a design capacity of 24Tbps, domestic newspaper The Nation reports. The new undersea cable is scheduled to be RFS by the end of 2016, linking 18 countries in south-east Asia, the Middle East and western Europe. TWA’s president Kamran Malik commented: ‘The SEA-ME-WE-5 investment by TWA is a result of positive and goal-oriented policies which will enhance socio-economic development and spur the economic growth via a more connected Pakistan’. TWA currently owns and operates the Pakistani section of the Transworld (TW1) system connecting the country with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
Bolivian state-run telecoms operator Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Entel) is reportedly planning to deploy 1,600km of fibre-optics across the Peruvian border to increase Bolivia’s international bandwidth connectivity, domestic news source La Razon reports. The fibre network will reach the Pacific coast in the Peruvian district of Lurin, which is situated in the Lima province. Further, the operator aims to deploy additional 4,000km of fibre optic cabling across Bolivia. Entel has reportedly earmarked investment of USD360 million to fund these projects. TeleGeography notes that landlocked Bolivia routes the majority of its traffic through Peru, with three submarine cable systems landing in Lurin – Pan American (PAN-AM), South America-1 (SAm-1) and South American Crossing (SAC)/Latin American Nautilus (LAN).
An 800km segment of Ghana’s Fibre Optic Broadband Backbone Infrastructure (FOBBI) project has been completed by the country’s government, AllAfrica reports. The deployment of the fibre-optic cable, which stretches from Ho in the Volta Region to Bawku in the Upper East Region, with a link from Yendi to Tamale (both in the Northern Region), was undertaken by Alcatel-Lucent; the EUR38 million (USD41.9 million) project covers 27 municipal and district assemblies and has been extended to the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ho.
International bandwidth infrastructure provider Zayo Group has announced plans to offer a new route from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) data centre in New Jersey to the Equinix NY5 data centre outside of New York City. The new dark fibre route will span 37.7km and is scheduled to be completed during the second quarter of 2015. The ultra-low-latency link will provide an alternative to the recently completed 38.3km NYSE-755 Secaucus route and will connect to the New Jersey/New York dark fibre network, which links to Zayo’s own long haul network, which currently spans more than 16,000 route miles across the United States and Europe.
Equipment vendor Ericsson has signed a strategic alliance agreement with ABB Group which aims to transform how data centre resources are architected, optimised and managed. The deal will see the combination of Ericsson’s Cloud System and ABB’s Decathlon for Data Centres, a data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) system, into a fully integrated solution, which will allow operators to automate and govern operations across numerous IT management systems.
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