New submarine cable system launched

KUCHING: 1Malaysia People's Cable System (SKR1M), a submarine cable system that was launched yesterday, has three landing points in the state.

The landing points in Sarawak are Kuching, Bintulu and Miri.

These points along with three other points in Kuantan and Mersing in Peninsular Malaysia as well as Kota Kinabalu in Sabah make up the new submarine cable system.

SKR1M is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project between Telekom Malaysia (TM) and the government through Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

This project, which was completed ahead of schedule, was launched by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg at a leading hotel here yesterday.

SKR1M was built with the aim of enhancing the existing domestic submarine cable connectivity between Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, thereby catering for future bandwidth growth requirements.

The new submarine cable system, which spans over 3,800 km, has an initial capacity of four terabit per second (Tbps).

With state-of-the-art 100 Gbps technology, SKR1M is capable of being upgraded to at least 12.8 Tbps of design capacity.

At the launch, Abang Johari said the new submarine cable system is part of the government's initiatives to increase and improve Internet access availability and quality in Sarawak.

He believed the system would vastly benefit Sarawakians in terms of socio-economic development.

"With the availability of core backbone connectivity provided through SKR1M, I am confident that Malaysians, particularly people of Sarawak will be able to fully embrace a digital lifestyle and boost the development of digital economy," he said.

Abang Johari asserted that digitisation is the way to move the state's economy forward given that no one could escape technological change.

He said the development of digital economy "is something that must be done because there is no other option" in order to achieve high-income status.

He added that Sarawak had no choice but to embrace digital economy or the state would not be able to move forward or stay competitive amidst globalisation.

"This is why we have allocated RM1 billion to upgrade our facilities. And RM1 billion is a big amount, but we have to do it. Only through connectivity could we bridge the divide between urban and rural.

"The rural and urban must be connected through high speed Internet, and we want the people to have access to e-learning," he said.

Abang Johari stressed that "we need connectivity to reach out to the market in other parts of Malaysia and outside Malaysia".

He said digital connectivity would link the local market with the global market thereby offering better opportunities for various businesses.

"Digital economy will move us forward in all aspects including tourism. In order to have more people coming to visit Malaysia, we need to promote our tourism products through connectivity.

"It is important for us to eradicate the divide between rural and urban so much so that we can be better connected to the world," he added.

Also present were TM Berhad chairman Tan Sri Datuk Seri Dr Sulaiman Mahbob and MCMC chief operating officer Datuk Dr Mazlan Ismail.