DILI, 16 november 2021 (TATOLI)—Minister of Transport and Telecommunications (MTT), José Agostinho said the best solution to sort out the limitation of internet connectivity in Timor-Leste is through the TlSSC-Timor-Leste South Submarine Cable system.
“Timor-Leste has much International connectivity. The TLSSC is the only solution taken by the government to solve this issue. It is also to ensure the internet high speed to respond to the consumer’s needs on the internet usage in Timor-Leste,” said Minister José Agostinho at the office of the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications.
Agostinho explained, in March within this year, Timor-Leste had reached ten years of implementing the policy of liberalization of the telecommunications sector, which means the transformation of the telecommunications sector has provided opportunities for other investors to invest.
It is known that the telecommunications sector has been improved since 2013 because it has equipped three telecommunications companies such as Timor Telecom, Telkomcel, and Telemor where consumers can choose their own telecommunications operators that they want.
Since 2017, this liberalization policy gave a positive impact and 96% of the population in TL can access the telephone service network.
In the same year, TL was also ranked 122 out of a total of 193 countries in the world according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) development index.
ITU also recorded that by 2020, 97% of the TL population were able to access the telephone service networks, 45% reach 4G networks and 30 out of 100 people have used mobile broadband services.
According to the ITU data assessment identified that international bandwidth for each internet user in TL only reached 3kb/sec when compared to 120kb/sec in Indonesia and 954kb/sec in Singapore.
“This means that TL currently has very limited internet connection or international connectivity,” said Agostinho.
He realized that the need for the internet during the pandemic increased rapidly from work services to the need for online learning where the limited internet connection once again had an unfavorable impact on this process.
The solution for this problem of limited bandwidth on international connectivity, the government has planned to invest in the highest quality international connectivity infrastructure.
“We have established an inter-ministerial committee for the implementation of the TLSSC system – TL South Submarine Cable which will connect TL to the world via Australia,” said Minister Agostinho.
According to Agostinho, The TLSSC project is currently in the final stages of the tender process where it has been confirmed that the operating system process will start in 2023 with sufficient bandwidth capacity.
The TLSSC system specification allows TL to issue Internet bandwidth of about 10Gbps (ten gigabytes-per-second) and the maximum planned capacity is 27,000Gbps (27 thousand gigabytes-per-second) which consists of connectivity from Dili-Darwin Sydney and Dili, Port Hedland-Singapore.
He added, in addition to investing in the TLSSC system for international connectivity, the government is also improving other infrastructure needed for the TLIX network interconnection facility (TL Internet Exchange) which is currently being implemented by the ANC (National Communications Authority).
“We hope that with wide international bandwidth, cheap and with interconnection facilities for operator networks in the TL, accompanied by a transparent, easy and fast administrative registration of telecommunication service operators, it can be a way for the development of telecommunications services and digital services that are sufficient,” he concluded.
Journalist: José Belarmino De Sá
Editor: Nelia Borges Rosario
