Indochina gears up for next generation services

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First phase involving fiber optic network to link six countries completed

by Ek Heng, Asia-Pacific Correspondent

Thu. August 6, 2009

An important milestone in connecting the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) was achieved recently with the official inauguration of a fiber optic network linking the six neighbouring countries of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

According to the Phnom Penh Post, the completion of the connection with Laos completes the first phase of an infrastructure project designed to provide a transmission speed of 620 Mbps. Known as the GMS information superhighway, the project is managed by TC and Huawei Technologies from China.

Rural areas will benefit

Telecom Cambodia’s Director General, Lao Saroeun, reportedly said the network already covers two-thirds of the country. The 650 km cable runs from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham, and from there east to Memot and north to the Laos border via Kratie and Stung Treng. At Siem Reap it branches out to an existing cable that runs from Vietnam through Phnom Penh and south of the Tonle Sap to Siem Reap and then to the Thai border at Poipet, according to the newspaper. Residents in rural areas will benefit from the ability to plug into the information highway for communication and Internet services.

The Director General added that the next phase for Cambodia would involve upgrading 11 network stations and the building of 15 new stations which will be connected to the existing national network.

Shedding further light, the Cambodian Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, So Khun, disclosed that three more companies are helping to improve the country’s telecom network, namely local firm Telcotech, China-based Cambodian Fiber Optic Communications Network Co (CFOCN) and Viettel from Vietnam, added the paper.

Three-phase infocomm project

The firm, CFOCN, has built more than 2,200 km of a projected 8,600 km of underground fiber optic cable in a five-year project that began in 2007. Telcotech is building an undersea cable while Viettel has built more than 1,000 km of land-based fiber optic cable, reported the paper.

Providing background information, the paper added that the GMS project had been initiated by China in 2005 and would cost around US $66 million. It comprises three phases – the first phase being the network linking the six GMS countries, now completed. The second phase involves building a high-speed network between the GMS nations while the final stage is to provide the public with online connections in the way of government, education and health services in Cambodia.

The paper also quoted Cambodian Minister of Economy and Finance, Keat Chhon: “The GMS project will help strengthen cooperation between people and the GMS countries, and will boost Cambodia’s economy and the regional economy. It will also help Cambodia improve its infocomm standard in the near future.”