Malaysia’s Mimos Berhad, which operates the country’s largest ISP Jaring, has deployed a OC-48 Internet backbone infrastructure with 2.5 Gbps of transmission speed and bandwidth.
The new backbone, dubbed SuperJaring, is considered the fastest type in the world and was with equipment from Cisco Systems, Inc., the global leader in networking.
With the two companies agreeing to work closely to deliver Internet services in Malaysia, the new backbone marks a new phase in the relationship between the government controlled Mimos and US-based Cisco.
SuperJaring, which currently runs through Pulau Pinang, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru, raises the capacity of Jaring by a significant magnitude. One OC-48 connection can support more than 175,000 dial-up users sending and receiving files at the same time.
According to Cisco, SuperJaring will be capable of providing next-generation services such as Internet Telephony, IP VPNs, video-on-demand, distance learning and telemedicine.
Besides its speed and bandwidth, SuperJaring has several unique characteristics.
The backbone was built completely on Cisco 12000 gigabit switch routers (GSRs) over dark fiber without the need for a transport layer of equipment such as SONET or SDH (Synchronous Digital Network). This saves a significant amount of money on network and operational costs, according to Cisco representatives.
Cisco also claims that the backbone, consisting of three GSRs in Pulau Pinang, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru, a distance of over 700 km, is the longest IP over fiber network of its kind.
“Information technology and the Internet in particular will be a great enabler for Malaysia,” said Dr. Mohamed Bin Awang Lah, vice president of technology development, Mimos. “The government has identified IT as one of the keys for our future success.”
“Mimos’ charter has been to develop the infrastructure that will serve as the platform for that growth,” added the Mimos official. “With the completion of SuperJaring, we are close to that goal.”
“With SuperJaring, Malaysia has one of the fastest and most advanced IP networks in the world,” commented Gary Jackson, director, service provider line of business, Asia-Pacific, Cisco Systems.
