Malaysia plans to start building a 5,582-km subsea cable linking peninsular Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak in the first quarter of 2027, with completion scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2029. The Communications Ministry set out the timeline in a written reply to Parliament on Wednesday, the government's Bernama news agency reported.

The project, known as Sambungan Kabel Dasar Laut MADANI (SALAM), is being developed by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) under the Universal Service Provision (USP) framework — the funding mechanism designed to extend connectivity to underserved parts of the country. That placement matters: Sabah and Sarawak, on Borneo, have historically lagged the peninsula in fixed and mobile coverage, and the USP route means the project's stated purpose is domestic resilience rather than transit capacity for international traffic.

What will the cable actually consist of?

The system will comprise four cable segments interconnected by ten landing stations:

• three landing stations in Sarawak;
• five in Sabah;
• two in peninsular Malaysia.

To put the scale in perspective, 5,582 km is roughly the driving distance from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo — a single fibre route spanning most of Malaysia's maritime territory, east and west.

The MCMC says the cable will enhance network redundancy, reduce the risk of service disruptions and strengthen Malaysia's overall communications resilience. That is an operator-level benefit claim, and it rests on an assumption the commission has not yet detailed publicly: that the landing stations and segment architecture will be diverse enough to survive cable cuts, which remain the leading cause of subsea outages in the region.

Where does procurement stand?

Not at contract stage. The MCMC is still evaluating submissions for the SALAM cable following publication of the invitation document this past July, Bernama reported. No vendor has been named, no contract value disclosed, and no detailed engineering survey results published.

The ministry's parliamentary timeline therefore covers construction start and finish only. It says nothing about procurement deadlines, financing beyond the USP framework, or capacity targets for the system. Until a supplier is selected, the Q1 2027 start date depends on how quickly the evaluation concludes.

Which landing points are confirmed?

One, so far. Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said in a statement on Thursday that Bintulu has been selected as one of the three landing points in Sarawak, the Borneo Post reported. The remaining nine landing points have not yet been finalised.

Bintulu is a logical choice: it hosts Malaysia's liquefied natural gas export terminal and sits midway along Sarawak's coast, positioning it to serve both the state's industrial corridor and domestic users.

Why a domestic backbone now?

Connectivity between peninsular Malaysia and Borneo currently relies on a limited set of routes, and regulators across Southeast Asia have moved since 2020 to harden domestic backbones — a trend accelerated by cable faults and by geopolitical scrutiny of who owns and lands subsea infrastructure. A dedicated, USP-funded system gives the MCMC direct influence over a link it treats as critical national infrastructure, rather than depending on commercial consortia whose routing priorities follow traffic, not equity of access.

The caveat is the schedule itself. A roughly three-year construction window, Q1 2027 to Q4 2029, is tight but plausible for a repeatered system of this length — provided the tender closes without delay and marine surveys find no obstacles. Both conditions remain untested.

With Bintulu confirmed and nine landing points still open, the next concrete signal to watch is the MCMC's vendor selection, which will determine whether the Q1 2027 construction start holds.