KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 30): The consortium of South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) has completed its 20,000-kilometre submarine cable infrastructure, spanning three continents, Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) said today.

The cable system, developed by a consortium comprising telcos from 18 countries including TM, has started carrying data traffic to meet the quadrupling of bandwidth demand between Europe and Asia.

TM global wholesale executive vice president Mohd Rozaimi said in a statement released today that the completion of the project, which spans from France and Italy to Singapore, "marks a major milestone not only for the consortium but for TM as well".

"With Malaysia being one of the landing countries, the submarine cable system is expected to fulfil TM's future business needs and it will boost TM's growth in the international bandwidth, IP Transit, IPVPN, interconnection and backhaul services," he said.

"TM is committed to deliver higher quality services that will enrich the digital lifestyle of Malaysians, in line with our vision of 'Making Life and Business Easier, for a Better Malaysia'," he added.

On the same note, SEA-ME-WE 5 Consortium Management Committee chairperson Linette Lee said the system will be a catalyst for greater economic activities, trade and growth across Asia, Europe and Africa.

"Together, we collaborated across different time zones and overcame numerous challenges to achieve the complex integration of technologies as promised and on time," she said, as she lauded members of the consortium for their support and commitment.

SEA-ME-WE 5 was recently recognised with the Project of the Year — Subsea award at the Global Carrier Awards in Paris in November 2016 for its technological and managerial excellence.

Equipped with an advanced 100Gbps technology, the submarine cable system is designed with a capacity of 24 terabits per second on three-fibre pairs.

In contrast with other submarine cable systems, the main endpoints of SEA-ME-WE 5 are carrier-neutral Points-of-Presence (PoPs) and not just Cable Landing Stations (CLS).

TM currently owns and leases more than 20 submarine cable systems spanning more than 320,000 kilometres across Asia Pacific and North America, at the same time operating 24 PoPs in 18 countries.

SEA-ME-WE-5 will provide TM with network diversity to Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) and SEA-ME-WE 4 (SMW4) cable systems connecting the Middle-East and Europe.