AAG : Something New ?

Several days ago I was 'googling' for the AAG - Asia America Gateway - submarine cable system. I just want to update myself with (and was expecting to find) some new information about it. Almost one year ago, I heard for the first time about this project just a while after many asian countries were healed / relaxed from the effect of the Taiwan's earthquake on Dec 2006. At that time, I wrote a short article about it in a local newspaper.

Unfortunately I do not find much new information. It seems that currently AAG doesn't have any official websites either.

Sofar, Google provides the following information for the AAG projects:

• The AAG network is owned by a consortium formed by 10 parties including the Government of Brunei, AT&T, Bharti, CAT, PLDT, PT Telkom, Telekom Malaysia, Telstra, StarHub and VNPT (alcatel-lucent.com 09/2007, a different version of the consortium's membership is issued by a press release document from Telekom Malaysia dated 04/2007, which names 17 telcos). It will link Malaysia to the U.S. via Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and the West coast of the US (see the picture).
• The AAG is intended to compliment existing cable systems like the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN 2) & Japan-US Cable Network currently connecting to North America via North Asia. This would increase connection diversity and survivability.
• Maximum design capacity of 1.92 Tbps; initial capacity of 480 Gbps
• one cable (with possibly 8/24 or 4/48)
• Length of the cable : around 20,000 km (half of the length of the equator)
• Contractors : Alcatel-Lucent (ASN), NEC Corporation
• US Landing : the AT&T 03 cable station (San Luis Obispo)
• Investment : ca. USD 500 mio.
• Regeneration distance : 76 km
• Date of service : late 2008
• Minimum lifetime : 25 years

If you look at the picture above, from Indonesia's point of view, it seems that both Telkom and Indosat will use their existing submarine cables to connect to either MY or SG. Telkom might use either its DMCS (Dumai Melaka Cable System) or its TIS cable.

Indonesian Telcos' Customer Base (2006)

As of 12/2006, Indonesia has around 78 millions telecommunication subscribers. Since around 8 millions are fixed-line subscribers, 70 millions thereof are wireless and cellular telecommunication customers.

With regard to customer base, the five biggest telcos in Indonesia are : Telkomsel, Indosat, Telkom, XL and Bakrie Telecom. The situation right now may differ. However, they still the major players in the domestic telecommunication market.

As can be seen from the table at the left, according to the number of customers, Telkomsel dominates with more than 50% market share.

Metro and Access Infrastructures

In providing metro connectivity services, Telkom and Indosat are accompanied by other players. Although they have still a dominant market share, several ISPs and new entrants have entered this market in several cities, especially providing metro IP-based services.

Traditional fixed-line (telephone) access infrastructures are still (almost 100%) owned and operated by Telkom. Other operators including Indosat prioritized development in wireless fixed lines, which obviously need smaller capital investments.

In terms of the number of players, wireless access infrastructures (including cellular and Internet hotspot) are the most prominent market. Telkomsel, Indosat and Excelcomindo are the dominant players. But Telkom (Flexi), BTel, Mobile-8 and several ISPs have still a quite significant number of customers.

Infrastructures for broadcast distributions have emerged since more than 10 years ago. The dominant player in this segment is Media Citra Indostar (Indovision), which owns and operates the Cakrawarta satellite. Terrestrial cable distribution networks are also built by some local providers. Such networks are currently also being used for offering Internet services.