Page 12 - The TM Submarine Cable Book
P. 12
1: The History: How it started
Main Trunk Route network from analogue
to digital began, and was completed by
year 2000. This transformation received a
boost once the RM150 million Kuantan-
ASEAN:- ASSOCIATION OF Kota Kinabalu submarine fibre optic cable
SOUTH EAST ASIAN NATIONS, became operational in 1979. For the first
comprises five countries, time, STM invested in a new optical fibre
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, submarine cable system linking Malaysia,
Singapore and Thailand. Singapore, HongKong, Taiwan and Japan
. Each optic fibre in the cable system could
The laying of the ASEAN network carry traffic at 560 Mbit/s, equivalent to
cable in 1978 was split into four 30,000 simultaneous phone calls.
sections. The first section laid was that
from the Philippines to Singapore. In 1981 with joined hands of seven
Shore ends at Katong, Singapore and commonwealth countries, a new cable
Currimao, Luzon, were laid by system was laid across the Indian Ocean
MV Cap Villano, hired by Standard between Marina Beach at Madras in India
Telephone and Cables Ltd., and Kuala Muda (Penang) Landing station
manufacturers of the cable. CS Cable in Malaysia. The 1350 nautical miles long,
Venture laid the 1507 nm main cable. Indian Ocean Commonwealth Cable
The second section in 1980 from (IOCOM) has a capacity of 480 high grade
Indonesia to Singapore was laid telephone circuits with provision for further
by Kuroshio Maru with Chosui Maru expansion. This IOCOM links are the
laying the shore ends. second for Malaysia and the first for India
with international submarine telephone
The main cable was 572 nm cable network connection after slow speed
long. KDD Maru and Kuroshio Maru telegraph cables in the region become
laid the 920 nm cable in 1983 between obsolete and were abandoned.
Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand
with Kaiko Maru 5 laying the shore
ends. The final section in 1986 from
Thailand to the Philippines was laid by
Kuroshio Maru. The cable carried
1380 circuits which were allocated on
the basis of ownership shares in the
whole project.
Challenges aside, STM continued to
adopt new technologies as they emerged
and to offer these to its customer base. First telegraph received by Penang from
Corporate Information Superhighway Madras.
(COINS) was launched, a globally linked
fibre optic backbone capable of
transmitting digital signals at 10 Mbit/s,
which was among the fastest of such
service in the world. At the same time, the
process of transforming the
11
