The 3,800km cable connects six landing points, Kuantan, Mersing, Kuching, Bintulu, Miri and Kota Kinabalu. The original purpose of the cable is to improve connectivity between the east and the west of the country, as well as preparing for future bandwidth demands as the system is upgradable to a maximum of 12.8Tbps of capacity.
The SKR1M project was established through a public-private partnership between Telekom Malaysia (TM) and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). In addition, TT dotCom, the communications service provider and subsidiary of TIME dotCom, owns a percentage of the cable.
Atsuo Kawamura, executive vice president of NEC, said: "NEC has been active in the submarine cable system business for more than 40 years, and in 1980, NEC supplied Malaysia with its first domestic coaxial submarine cable system. NEC has laid a total of more than 250,000km of cable, the equivalent of six trips around the earth's equator, and we are now recognised as one of the world's top submarine cable vendors. On this occasion, I would like to extend my congratulations to MCMC and TM, and my heart-felt thanks for yet again selecting NEC as your partner to build SKR1M. I sincerely hope that our partnership will be further enhanced, and be given the next opportunity to contribute to the various regions of Malaysia."
Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Mohd Salleh Tun Said Keruak, minister of communications and multimedia for Malaysia, said: "This new submarine cable system is part of the government's initiatives via MCMC to increase the capacity of high-speed broadband and data traffic between Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah and Sarawak. This is among the measures which the government is undertaking to improve the socio-economic status of people in Sabah and Sarawak through ICT adoption and broadband connectivity and was mentioned by our honorable prime minister during the tabling of the 2014 budget. Thus, I am delighted that today, this goal has become a reality."
NEC was also a part of the SEA-US submarine cable system, which links Davao and the US, launching in August of this year. The company built the cable for a consortium of seven members which included: Globe Telecom, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International, RAM Telecom International, Hawaiian Telcom, Teleguam Holdings GTI Corp. and Telkom USA.
