A CROSSBORDER fibre optic cable between Myanmar and Thailand, built under the Greater Mekong Subregion Information Superhighway project, is ready for use on a trial basis, Myanma Post and Telecommunications said last week.

A spokesperson from state-owned MPT’s information and technology department said the cable runs from Yangon to the border at Myawaddy in Kayin State, and then into Thailand.

He said the cable can carry bandwidth capacity of 10 gigabit (Gb) plus additional capacity of 2.5Gb on a microlink, permitting faster and better internet connection and telephone communications.

The link was one of two for Myanmar that have been built under the GMS project. The other, connecting Myanmar with China and having the same bandwidth capacity, was launched last March.

The GMS Information Superhighway project helps countries along the Mekong River – including Laos, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand – to lay a sound infrastructure foundation for future smooth telecommunications connections.

The six Mekong nations signed a deal on jointly developing the information superhighway in November 2004.

Moreover, MPT also plans to build more data backbone fibre optic links across the country to ensure the smooth flow of data, the spokesperson said.

The projected network will be built with the Internet Protocol over Synchronised Digital Hierarchy (IP over SDH) system and will include about 10 main links for data connection to towns in all States and Divisions. “We’ve finished surveying for the network and we hope to start once we get the necessary facilities,” he said, adding that the fibre optic link would be constructed independently of telecommunications links.

The fibre optic links will be built to various standards, ranging from STM 1 to STM 16 – and bandwidth capacity will be 155MB on STM1 standard, 600MB on STM4 standard and 2.5Gb on STM16 standard, he said.