Gov't: Cellular Services in Papua Sabotaged by Unknown People

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Communication and Informatics (Kominfo) Minister Rudiantara announced that the lack of cellular services in Jayapura, Papua, and its vicinity are caused by the acts of “unknown people” who sabotaged the region’s main optical telecommunication network.

“What has happened in Jayapura is because someone has cut the main optical network owned by Telkomsel which eventually disconnected cellular services in many Jayapura areas,” said Rudiantara in a written release on Thursday night, August 29.

The minister asserts that the government is not behind the current lack of telecommunication services in Papua since the government only curbed the area’s internet connection by bandwidth throttling.

“The government only limited the region’s data services and there are no blackout policies. Calls and texts (SMS) are still functional,” said Rudiantara.

He explains that Telkomsel is currently fixing its network problem by diverting the communication traffic in the region and certainly the company’s optics cable that was sabotaged by unknown people.

As of now, the Indonesian government has requested the help of the Indonesian National Police (Polri) and the Armed Forces (TNI) to help secure any open space repairs in Papua conducted by the cellular operator subsidiary of state-owned communications company PT Telkom Indonesia.

ANTARA