Brunei Darussalam is shaping up as a bandwidth transit hub for the Bornean States of Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan. Terrestrial fibre optic cables connect these Bornean States to Brunei cable landing stations which then provide direct connectivity to 9 international destinations, namely Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, China and USA.

The Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AITI) facilitates the deployment of telecommunication infrastructure and services, including submarine cables, in Brunei. An Infrastructure Provider for the Telecommunication Industry (InTi) is required to deploy a submarine cable system into Brunei.

As of January 2020, Brunei Darussalam is connected to 4 active submarine cable systems, with a potential bandwidth capacity of 10 Tbps. These 4 submarine cable systems are landed in two cable landing sites in Brunei, namely the Tungku landing site and the Telisai landing site.

There are currently two cable landing stations:

• Tungku Submarine Cable Station
• Telisai Submarine Cable Station

There are now four submarine cables connecting Brunei:

• AAG - Asia America Gateway cable
• SJC - South East Asia Japan Cable
• SMW3 - South East Asia Middle-East West Europe 3 cable
• LBC - Labuan Brunei Cable.

Riding on the strong growth in IP-based traffic, Brunei has successfully lighted up 10 Tbps of international capacity to fuel bandwidth demand.

Brunei’s geographical location with no history of natural disasters like typhoons and earthquakes, and substantially lower power costs, presented the sultanate with added advantages as a connectivity and transit hub for the underserved regions of Borneo Island and the BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippines East Asia Growth Area)

Brunei is connected Sabah and Sarawak of Malaysia and the West Kalimantan Province of Indonesia with terrestrial connectivity via the border crossing of Sungai Tujoh, and with commercial traffic of 1 Tbps.

Contributed by: Marcus Ang, et al., UNN