The result was a rapid six-month turnaround. “We were out of the red by December 2023,” says Quah. With renewed investor confidence, the company launched its second $20 million bond, which was fully subscribed by January 2024. This enabled Quah’s long-term vision: to be the dominant fiber provider in Cambodia and the preferred partner for cross-border connectivity across Cambodia, Vietnam and the ASEAN region.  

With funds directed into technology upgrades and network expansion, 2024 saw the rollout of 5,000km of new fiber and a multi-terabyte cross-border network delivering a tenfold revenue boost and a 586% profit surge that year. This combination of robust market position, latest technology, widest domestic infrastructure coverage and competitive latency cross-border connectivity—both terrestrial and submarine cables—positions Telcotech as a trusted partner for OTTs and Telcos across ASEAN.  

Connections to surrounding markets, Cambodia’s only submarine cable, MCT and end-to-end network management provide the diversity and resilience for hyperscalers, data centers and providers. “We have transformed Telcotech to be a true connectivity partner for Telcos, OTTs, ISPs and carriers, both local and international,” says Quah.  

In this interview, Quah outlines how Telcotech’s turnaround restored profitability, sharpened its regional strategy and strengthened its appeal as a preferred connectivity partner at Southeast Asia. 

Q: How did you lead Telcotech’s turnaround in 2023?  

Dylan Quah, CEO: When I took over in April 2023, it was to turnaround the company, it was a critical state and we were in dire need of funds. So, the immediate goal was to stabilize the company by optimizing the cost and expenses, boosting sales to a sustainable growth level and attaining a healthy cash flow. It was a lot of hard work and hard decisions in the early days, but I was lucky to have a whole new management team. With that, I could set up a new work culture at the start, where we would run Telcotech as a “startup” company. Every issue and challenge, we would lay it out on the table, and we would trash it out there and then, everyone will take responsibility on their parts as well as to support those who needed help. With this ‘startup’ mentality, everyone knows it is a make-or-break year in 2023, so all of us would roll-up our sleeves and work together as a swarm of bees to meet any challenges arise. Within 6 months, we had successfully turned around the company, and we were out of the red by December 2023. With the successful turnaround, we had renewed confidence in our investors and the market. This has enabled Telcotech to launch our 2nd bond for $20 million and secured all investors by January 2024. 

Q: How is Telcotech positioned today?  

DQ: With the new fund raised from our 2nd bond, we could invest in the latest network technology and expand our domestic coverage to cover up to 85% of Cambodia as we serve out all domestic Telcos as ISPs. We also build a new border to border superhigh way to connect Vietnam to Thailand to enable the best-in-class technology and service for terrestrial IP connectivity across Cambodia. And as you mentioned, expand out connectivity presence in key countries to be future ready for the needs of our domestic and international clients. With this, we have transformed Telcotech to be a true connectivity partner to Telcos, ISPs and Carriers. Where we no longer just sell products, we enable strategies and resolve current and future connectivity challenges for our customers. 

I envisage that for international partners, and clients, including from the United States, Telcotech should be the Top-of-Mind connectivity provider in Cambodia bridging Indochina. Whether it is to connect international Telcos and Carriers for their IP needs in Singapore, Hongkong, China or Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, we hold the gateway to land connectivity. For OTTs and Hyperscalers, we provide greater diversity options for DC interconnect for Edge DCs or hub DC that they have in this growing region. For international investors, Southeast Asia is the new hotbed for technological and data boom in the world, and with Cambodia with it’s strategic location in the middle of these growing powerhouses, Telcotech can be the key to unlocking the gateway in the region with our superior network, latest equipment as well as customer service. 

Q: What drove revenue, EBITDA and profit higher in 2024?  

DQ: 2024 was a defining year for us, we have broken records, reached areas far more that what we could ever go and managed to attain transformational changes from within. The result you mentioned in 2024 is a direct outcome of the focused execution of our strategies laid out to achieve our vision; to be the top Fiber Co. in Cambodia and to be the main international connectivity hub for the Vietnam and Indochina. 

The key drivers behind this financial performance was a clear vision with simple but executable strategie; our ability to win over new business from local Telcos and ISP with distinguishable better network as customer service; anticipating and providing real-time solutions to resolve our international customers' pain points as well as their need for diversity; and our people. 

Helming from the Royal Group of Companies of Cambodia, we proudly elevate the slogan of “Proudly Khmer” as Telcotech is made up of 99.5% local employees. Sometimes I feel like to luckiest person on earth to have a superb team of talented young Cambodians. Dedicated, hardworking and innovative are the key words that I will use to describe my team. This is not just limited to the management team, but it holds true to most of the staff in Telcotech. With a clear direction, simple and executable plans, we are able to swarm as a team like bees racing to complete its objectives with everyone understanding their individual roles and how it contributes to the bigger team (Telcotech) in achieving our objectives. 

Q: Why should U.S. and EU partners choose Telcotech?  

DQ: We have always wanted to make our company in line with the government of Cambodia's aspiration to be a digital-first nation. Our continuous effort to expand our coverage footprint as an independent fiber core has allowed us to serve more Telco and ISP customers in Cambodia. In 2023, we managed to win over the account of one of the largest telcos in Cambodia, for a wide range of solutions. At the international stage, our strategy has always been to focus on IP transit by bridging connectivity border-to-border, especially from Vietnam to Thailand or to Singapore. 

With the increasing geopolitical pressures in Vietnam, we foresaw them taking a different route to transit into Singapore rather than Hong Kong or China. So, we have reaffirmed our relationship with our Vietnam customers and have been effectively marketing this route to them. In early 2024, we won one of the biggest IPLC contracts in Vietnam with 1.5 Terabits of traffic flowing through Cambodia. For this initiative we were awarded ‘Leading Telecommunication Service Provider in Cambodia 2024’ by the Global Brands Magazine. 

I believe this has solidified our position in Cambodia and the Southeast Asian region as one of the most trustable brand and services for a connectivity partner. 

In our competitive advantages assessment, it reveals that Telcotech has established the strongest overall position through technological leadership, premium service quality and strategic international connectivity assets. Telcotech commands a 12-15% premium for enterprise services while offering competitive international bandwidth rates.

Q: How are AI and data infrastructure shaping your offer?  

DQ: This was a very interesting topic for me, and I am so pleasantly surprised to see so many people involved locally and internationally to help Cambodia develop AI research. In my keynote speech on Enabling Digital Infrastructure for AI, I shared my thoughts about these emerging trends that may help enable or protect AI generated data, especially those that can be sensitive information. 

Quantum computers can perform calculations immensely faster than classical computers, allowing cyber criminals to break public key-based encryption algorithms and perform cyber-attacks that are currently not possible. At Telcotech we are working with our equipment and technology partners/suppliers / to protect our new network for AI infrastructure against these threats. This is to have a well-researched and tested security later overlayed on our network to provide quantum-safe encryption. 

We plan to have GDPR-compliant storage at Kampus DC in Cambodia, in the context of AI research, refers to data storage solutions that adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—a strict data privacy law enforced in the European Union. 

Edge computing brings AI processing closer to where data is created. This reduces latency and enables real-time intelligence for Cambodia's digital economy. We are working with several hyperscalers to bring their services to Cambodia through an Edge DC solution. 

Q: Why is now the moment to choose Cambodia?  

DQ: After the 2 years of building a thriving connectivity business in ASEAN, I can put it down to the following key contributing factors of why Cambodia is important to U.S and EU hyperscaler to succeed in this region: 

Network Resilience: Telcotech is strong particularly in Vietnam as we offer the biggest network capacity with a short lead time to light up for network diversity for their international IPLC connectivity to other Asean country especially Singapore. We have a dual network that runs across Cambodia with a choice of western circuits and eastern circuits. Telcotech is the only one having the working Submarine cable in Cambodia that is very capable alternative to the limited Subsea network in Vietnam, with even lower latency compared to most of those networks. We are also able to have multiple points to connect at the Cambodia or Laos side to get to different DC locations in Vietnam, servicing cross border connectivity for all carriers companies in Vietnam. 

Reliable service: Traditionally the Vietnam carrier usually uses the Chinese International carriers to purchase or lease the network across Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia to get to Singapore. However, over the past year, it has proven to be more reliable, flexible and economical for Cambodia to directly procure and manage the IPLC network for them. In the case of Telcotech, we provide End-to-End network management and take on the responsibility and SLA of the whole network. We managed to establish powerful as well as agile partnerships across Thailand and Malaysia to cater for any requirements and demands that the customers may have. This has proven to be the winning formula that has made our international transit business a big success in just 1 year. 

Open network: While we face an everchanging geopolitical climate as well as rigid policies put up by some countries, it is utmost importance to have options to thrive in this region. While Cambodia sits in the key location within Indochina, it has remained neutral in its political standing. This has enabled InfraCo like Telcotech to be more open to provide OTTs and hyperscalers a variety of options for an OPEN network. Domestically we are in partnership with all the Telcos and all the ISPs in an agnostic open business relationship. Internally we are connected to all the carriers in the Vietnam, Thailand and Laos border, ready to serve and relay service to anyone, any companies. Our DCs and CLS are also open to any X-connect. On top of that, we also can provide a fully customized network as a service such as managed networks that enable better flexibility and control over large network capacities. Even we have multiple options for our fiber network (Western, Eastern, Neutral) for all border to border and border to submarine all the way to your preferred destination.