TIME Selected as DiGi?s Fibre Provider in RM139 Million Deal

TIME Selected as DiGi's Fibre Provider in RM139 Million Deal
Agreement Marks the Deployment of the Most Advanced Fibre Optic Network for Mobile Backhaul

SHAH ALAM, 14 DECEMBER 2010: TIME dotCom Berhad ("TIME") has been selected by DiGi.Com Berhad ("DiGi") as one of its fibre partners to provide high-speed backhaul capacity to support its rapid growth in mobile data and voice services. The collaboration is the first peninsular-wide deployment of a full optical switched fibre network to support mobile backhaul traffic.

Under the ten year agreement, worth RM139 million, TIME will fiberise, maintain and support parts of DiGi's backhaul links between its aggregation wireless towers and its mobile switching centres (MSC).

The current architecture of wireless backhaul networks limit the amount of bandwidth it can transport. Fiberisation allows wireless operators to transport Gigabit capable data and scaling up of capacity as and when the need arises.

Henrik Clausen, CEO of DiGi explained that the agreement comes on the back of the need to secure access to fibre capacity to complement its current wireless infrastructure to cater for the fast growing and future bandwidth requirements of its customers.

"Strengthening our network infrastructure is a key focus area for us to better support our growth in data, a main revenue driver moving forward," added Clausen.

Afzal Abdul Rahim, CEO of TIME said, "Fibre optics provides mobile players the platform they require to support the explosion in bandwidth. We see fiberisation of wireless nodes as a core focus in being a wholesale network provider. Immediate scalability is what the wireless world needs and we are in the best position to serve this market.

"DiGi's move is validation of its innovative and progressive approach in the mobile industry. We are proud to be their fibre partner in this game," Afzal concludes.

TIME's growing wireless network fiberisation business is backed by its core fibre optics network Cross Peninsular Cable System (CPCS). CPCS is a fully meshed network over five diverse routes, which is able to provide 99.999% guaranteed availability. It is supported with close to 100 optical Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) nodes nationwide. DWDM is the industry leading technology which allows for near the endless scalability.

In mobile network architecture, the backhaul infrastructure carries voice and data traffic between radio access nodes and MSC. TIME's fibre deployment over wireless towers future-proofs mobile operators' networks to meet the raising bandwidth demands.

Issued by:
Corporate Communications Department.