CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited (CITIC Telecom CPC), a fully-owned subsidiary of CITIC Telecom International Holdings Limited (SEHK: 1883), has recently deployed Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta network gateway for its TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid (SD-WAN, Software Defined Wide Area Network) enterprise connectivity solution.
These latest SD-WAN gateways, powered by VMware, follow CITIC Telecom CPC’s ongoing initiatives to anticipate and address demand for innovative, high performance, and agile Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions in the fastest-growing markets in ASEAN. In 2016 the company expanded Russian and Eastern European coverage to serve its customers better, encompassing CITIC Telecom CPC’s full range of end-to-end managed services, including MPLS, cloud, and managed network security solutions.
By improving the capacity of the TrueCONNECT (TM) Hybrid at ASEAN, CITIC Telecom CPC (CPC) is meeting the critical base of Innovative Technology Business and Smart Cities being built in the region. The ASEAN coverage of TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid now includes Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and Jakarta.
“We have always focused on identifying and serving the most important needs in the most important market segments,” said Mr. Taylor Lam, Senior Vice President of Product Development & Management from CITIC Telecom CPC. “Within a year of its launch, TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid already covers nearly 50 gateways across 49 cities in 15 countries, including six (6) in Southeast Asia. These new ASEAN gateways in Malaysia and Indonesia underscore our commitment to ASEAN customers and highlight our continued strong SD-WAN partnership with VMware. More network gateways translate to better link quality, lower latency and overall improved performance.”
With TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid, a fully managed and better secured SD-WAN connectivity solution, customers can leverage the most cost-effective bandwidth available without compromising QoS delivery. Enterprises can dynamically create hybrid networks that bind multiple access technologies into single logical paths, taking advantage of MPLS linkages’ reliability, security, and performance, yet limiting associated expenses.
Network traffic is sensibly stepped on optimal routes at the best time to increase performance and reduce costs. It improves application performance, business agility, bandwidth protection, and optimizes business application access. TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid achieves these compelling advantages without requiring the high traditional costs, additional in-house staffing or other ongoing overhead expenses, often prohibitive for companies with tight budgets and timeframes. IT managers also gain more visibility, traffic routing control, rapid deployment and recovery, all with almost zero on-site IT personnel.
The new Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta network gateways significantly enhance the performance of TrueCONNECT (TM) hybrid in ASEAN, which has long been popular as an ideal region for the world’s leading technology companies to expand their physical presence. In particular, Singapore’s political and legal stability and transparency have attracted considerable investment in the city-state from multinationals and global technology pioneers, including purchasing significant real assets in the central business district and establishing innovation research laboratories. ASEAN as a whole is receiving increasing venture capital from around the world.
“A huge percentage of the ASEAN population is digitally savvy,” said Mr. Derek Ung, General Manager, Enterprise Sales, CITIC Telecom CPC. “Companies and people are eager to embrace and enjoy new technological products and services. ASEAN is still relatively under-represented in terms of tech startups. The potential for solutions that support all these new businesses and government projects especially smart city initiatives is huge, and creates opportunities for win/win/win for our company, our partners such as VMware, and our customers.”
The latest Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is setting out the framework for becoming the largest free trade area in the world. It is a potential window for the future of business as well as for venturing enterprises to capitalize on new opportunities in the Pacific region of Asia. In addition, research by analysts has pointed to potentially increasing ASEAN growth of its digital economy to about $ 300 billion over the next five years, likely encompassing multiple areas including smart products and services in e-commerce, mobility, travel, telecommunications, social media, and even healthcare, the latter driven by telehealth demands in Southeast Asian countries that are lacking sufficient medical workers, and COVID-19 social distancing impacts.
The “Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025” has also forecast up to $625 billion in annual economic impact in ASEAN by 2030, through disruptive technologies such as mobile Internet, Big Data, Cloud and Internet of Things applications.
“We may also see tremendous growth in fintech as the financial sector leverages new connectivity and computing technologies to innovate banking and investment services,” added Derek, CPC. “Manufacturing is yet another area that will evolve, with many regional companies relocating or building out their supply chain in ASEAN. With our latest gateway deployment, we want to be ready to serve our customers in ASEAN and those moving to ASEAN.”
The new ASEAN gateways for TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid fortify CITIC Telecom CPC’s ability to maintain its high-quality SLA commitment to ASEAN enterprise customers, enabling high network performance without compromising on responsiveness or reliability. The improved network capacity is also significant for the emerging new digital businesses and smart cities of the region, involving the New Normal “Work From Home” approach being adopted worldwide. Robust network performance without sluggishness or outages is especially relevant for organizations migrating applications and workloads to cloud platforms via business digitalization initiatives.
“We are very excited to partner with CITIC Telecom CPC and help them deliver TrueCONNECT(TM) Hybrid to ASEAN customers,” said Abe Ankumah, senior director, SD-WAN and SASE Business, VMware. “VMware SD-WAN Gateways are a unique and key component of our architecture, and for even the most demanding connectivity requirements, enterprises will be well-supported by the many high-performance gateways deployed by CITIC Telecom CPC throughout this region.”
“We are fully committed to the long-term success of our customers,” said Taylor, CPC. “From Q1 2021, we plan to expand our network gateways to 10 more cities including in the Philippines, to ensure that we deliver the best experience to our customers.”
