Bandar Seri Begawan - The 20,000km-long Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable network yesterday announced the completion of its comprehensive test requirement and thus enabling AAG to carry commercial traffic, the Ministry of Communications said in a statement.

The members of the AAG consortium, which was formed in April 2007 to build the fibre optic submarine cable system, have ensured that the entire system is properly installed and implemented by completing a full range of system trials and confidence and acceptance testing. The AAG Consortium is committed to the highest levels of service for the life of the system.

Brunei Darussalam is one of the branches landing party with investments amounting to US$40 million, of which US$30 million of investment is invested by the Brunei Government, US$5 million by Telekom Brunei Bhd and US$5 million by DST Group. A joint venture agreement was signed on July 13, 2009 between the Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam through its investment vehicle, namely, Brooketon Sdn Bhd and the two telecommunications providers, Telekom Brunei Bhd (TelBru) and DST Group represented by DST International (B) Sdn Bhd to carry out the business of an investment holding and trading company which will enable BIG to participate in the AAG submarine cable project operation.

BIG was officially incorporated in Brunei on August 17, 2009 to take over the Government of Brunei's role in investment and membership in the AAG.

The fully operational AAG cable system is the first cable system ever to link Southeast Asia direct to the US. This cable system links Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Hong Kong and the Philippines direct to the US where it lands in Guam, Hawaii and California (San Luis Obispo).

The AAG is planned and designed to avoid known geographically hazardous areas where seismic activities are known to be active. With a start-up equipped capacity of about 500Gbps, the cable system is upgradable as it employs the field proven DWDM technology.

Apart from linking the high growth Southeast Asian markets to the US, the cable system also provides seamless connectivity to India, Europe and even Africa via common landing countries along its routes.

AAG consortium is composed of AT&T Corp (USA), Bayan Telecommunications Inc (Philippines), Bharti AirTel (India), Brunei government (Brunei), British Telecom Global Network Services (UK), CAT Telecom (Thailand), Eastern Telecommunications Philippines Inc (Philippines), FPT telecom (Vietnam), PLDT(Philippines), PTlndosat(Indonesia), PT Telkom (Indonesia), Saigon Postel Corp (Vietnam), StarHub (Singapore), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia), Telcotech Ltd (Cambodia), Telstra (Australia), Telecom New Zealand International (New Zealand), Viettel (Vietnam) and Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Group of Vietnam (Vietnam).-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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