Jakarta, 5 May 2021 – PT Telkom Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (Telkom) is still accelerating to restore services in the Jayapura area, following a disruption on Friday night (30/4) due to the severing of the Sulawesi Maluku Papua Cable System (SMPCS) submarine cable communication system for the Biak - Jayapura section, 280 km from Biak and 360 km from Jayapura. The cause of the undersea fiber optic rupture is temporarily believed due to natural factors, considering the location of the disconnected cable was 4,050 m deep, Telkom will only be able to further identify the cause after removing the cable from the sea.

"We continue to accelerate resuming TelkomGroup services in Jayapura. Following the resumption of voice and SMS services, IndiHome internet services have begun to recover gradually and are still limited, as well as Telkomsel data services. Internet services at Wifi Corners in Jayapura, Abepura, and Sentani have also resumed operations and the public can use it. VPN and Astinet for the corporate segment have also started to gradually reconnect with bandwidth priorities," Pujo Pramono, Telkom Vice President of Corporate Communication said in Jakarta (5/5).

Pujo added that Telkom's available bandwidth capacity has now reached 1,493 Mbps, supported with a backup link to speed up the service recovery. The back-up links in question include the East Palapa Ring infrastructure of 500 Mbps which has been operating since April 30, 2021 and a satellite communication system with a capacity of up to 993 Mbps via satellite under the management of Telkomsat for the Jayapura – Makassar link as well as the Telenet satellite link. Telkom is also increasing the bandwidth capacity via satellite from Telkomsat with a capacity of 124 Mbps and 330 Mbps as well as IP radio to Biak with a capacity of up to 1 Gbps. The repair operation is expected to finish in phases until May 8, 2021.

The repair for the severed SMPCS segment is expected to complete in the first week of June 2021, given that it requires a special ship to reconnect the cable. 

"We will continue to strive and put priority to accelerate resuming our quality service to normal soon. We hope for all parties’ support and prayers so that we can have a smooth recovery,” Pujo said.