SingTel considers regional cable network

SingTel considers regional cable network

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel) is looking at building a fibre optic submarine cable network to link the city- state with Indonesia and Thailand, the island's dominant carrier said Monday.

SingTel has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (PT Telkom) to explore the construction of the proposed network, it said in a statement.

"With this MOU, the proposed cable network will be able to provide the necessary infrastructure to support the growing bandwidth demands emerging rapidly from Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand," SingTel executive vice president for global business Lim Shyong said.

The statement gave no details on the cost of the project.

Lim said it "is important that we are able to tap upon the strengths and experience of one another to collaboratively build" the regional high capacity network.

"Despite the current economic downturn in Asia, we will be able to leverage the situation to negotiate lower construction cost, and transfer these cost savings to our customers when the cable network is completed by 2003, in time when the economy recovers," he said.

The proposed 1,200 kilometer-long (744 miles) network, if the go ahead is given, is expected to be completed by the middle of 2003 and all three partners are to have equal share in the cable system.

All three parties are also looking to include Malaysia into the network and discussions are underway with prospective telecom operators from the country, the statement said.