10 September 2025
ZTE has entered into a strategic partnership with Sacofa, a telecoms infrastructure provider owned by the Sarawak government in East Malaysia.
The collaboration aims to modernize Sacofa’s fiber network by upgrading its core transport, routing, and optical layers with ZTE’s advanced solutions, laying a foundation for enhanced network resilience, long-term availability, and improved performance.
As part of the deal, ZTE will supply its optical transport network technologies, which support a throughput of 1.6 terabits per second and feature AI-driven network control to boost reliability and spectrum efficiency. The core transport solution also incorporates ZTE’s 6-in-1 EDN (enhanced deterministic networking) processor, designed to deliver high-speed data forwarding with guaranteed low latency and jitter-resilient performance, making it suitable for real-time applications.
Sacofa’s Managing Director, Sulaiman Abdul Rahman B Abdul Taib, stated that these solutions will enable scalable bandwidth, improve service performance, and streamline operational efficiency. He emphasized that this upgrade will significantly enhance Sarawak’s connectivity and support the state’s broader digital ambitions.
“By modernizing our network infrastructure, Sacofa is positioned to convert increased capacity and reliability into economic growth and operational readiness,” said Taib.
Steven Ge, MD of ZTE Malaysia, added that the collaboration will deliver a future-proof digital backbone capable of supporting 5G, cloud computing, and AI-driven services. This aligns with Sarawak’s 2030 vision of fostering a dynamic and inclusive digital economy.
The Sarawak state government acquired a majority stake in Sacofa through its subsidiary, SFS Incorporated, earlier this year, according to the Borneo Post. Sacofa manages over 1,688 towers — including 438 under the Universal Service Provision (USP) — and operates more than 12,000km of fibre across both urban and rural areas in Sarawak, further underscoring its critical role in the region’s connectivity infrastructure.
