Alaska Communications Selected as Landing Party for US-Malaysia Fiber Cable
Alaska Communications’ cable landing facilities in Florence, Oregon. Built in 2008 for the Alaska-Oregon Network known as AKORN, the site includes the beach landing, front-haul fiber, and cable landing station.
Photo Credit: Alaska Communications
The first subsea fiber optic cable to directly connect Malaysia and the US will land at the Alaska Communications cable landing station in Florence, Oregon. The cable, dubbed MYUS to represent the two linked countries, is slated to be ready for use in mid-2028. It will help increase access to reliable and affordable digital services across Southeast Asia.
Strategically positioned along the Oregon coast, Alaska Communication’s Florence landing station is a critical hub for subsea fiber optic cables which are the backbone of the internet. The location provides access to multiple fiber backhaul providers, ensuring seamless connectivity to major data center complexes in Seattle; Hillsboro, Washington; Silicon Valley, California; and beyond.
Trans-Pacific Data Pipeline
The cable backbone will extend between the Malaysian Peninsula near Mersing, in the South China Sea, to the US territory of Guam in the Western Pacific Ocean, and then onward to Alaska Communications’ cable landing station in Oregon. Along the more than 8,000-mile path, MYUS will also connect Batam, Jakarta, and Balikpapan in Indonesia and Davao City in the Philippines.
“The MYUS cable is being designed specifically to provide trusted and reliable direct fiber connectivity between these locations for large hyperscale, cloud, content, carrier, and government customers,” says Abang Azhari Hadari, founder and CEO of Hexa Capital Consultancy PLT, or Hexa, the owner of the cable.
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December 2024
Hexa is a special-purpose start-up company led by a development team of telecom and submarine cable industry veterans for the purposes of planning, financing, constructing, and operating the first high-speed undersea fiber optic cable directly connecting Malaysia and the continental United States.
“MYUS customers can be confident in the route design because it avoids the problems plagued by other existing undersea cables that transit contested waters in Southeast Asia, provides efficient routing for lowest possible latency, and uses well-known, well-proven existing cable landing sites that have excellent up-time performance as well as widely-available backhaul options for Hexa’s fiber pair owners,” says Hadari. “Alaska Communications was an obvious choice when we evaluated strategic partnerships in the US Pacific Northwest.”
Alaska Communications’ cable landing facilities in Florence include the beach landing, front-haul fiber, and cable landing station built in 2008 for the Alaska-Oregon Network known as AKORN, commissioned in 2009.
“We look forward to a long-term relationship hosting MYUS at our premier landing station,” says Alaska Communications COO Jeff Vogt. “By hosting international cables, our landing station plays a vital role in driving global economic growth and enhancing access to education, healthcare, and overall quality of life. Our highly trained, experienced local team will act as strategic partners in operating MYUS, further demonstrating our leadership in global subsea cable management.”
MYUS will be an open cable with sixteen fiber pairs along its backbone. Hexa’s business model is to sell fiber pairs to long-term owners that will demand reliability and high performance of the cable to support their business growth. Hexa’s selection of Alaska Communications as a partner builds on its strategy of planning globally but partnering locally with strong, proven operators capable of and proven for meeting the requirements of the most demanding customers.
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