Telkom Undersea Cable Repair; Understanding The Situation

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - State-owned telecommunication giant Telkom Group announced that it is currently in the middle of restoring the submarine fiber-optic cable or undersea cable stretched at the Batam-Pontianak segment, which has caused internet connection issues for some of Telkomsel and Indihome customers. 

The process of fixing the damaged cable is expected to last for one month since the problem was first addressed on Sunday, September 19.

Telkom said lengthy repair time includes the cableshipe preparation prior to operating it to the location. A similar issue occurred not long ago in April across the ocean section between Sarmi and Biak in Papua.

The fact remains that damages will certainly happen for undersea or submarine cables across the globe at one point. 

Citing the National Bureau of Asian Research, the most common cause of damage to undersea cables is human error and negligence. Problems arising from bottom-tending commercial fishing equipment and related dredging accounts for 40% of cable disruptions. 

Another 15% of damage is caused by anchoring incidents, such as improperly stored anchors, anchoring outside approved areas, sea conditions affecting anchor positioning, and the emergency dropping of an anchor. Other benign human factors include dredging and dumping, oil and gas development, offshore wind and energy development, hydrokinetic projects, ocean thermal energy conversion, deep-sea mining operations, and other renewable energy projects. 

A collaborative report by the UNEP or United Nations Environment Programme and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) published in 2009 specifically mentioned that 70 percent of the entire cases of undersea fiber-optic cable failures is caused by external factors by shipping and fishing activities across ocean areas with a depth below 200 meters. 

In general, the recovery or repair process are done by locating the location of the submarine cable that needs fixing, revealing the damaged cable with a specially designed submarine cable grapnel aboard a specially-designed vessel for this purpose, lifting the cable to the surface for repairs, the lengthy time needed to complete this is heavily dependant on the depth of the sea, the angle or the cable that needs repair, the speed of the ocean current, the wave effects, and manmade and natural obstacles that might come across between the repair vessel and the fiber-optic cable.

Reported last week, Telkom corporate communications VP Pujo Pramono said the internet connection problems besetting Indihome and Telkomsel users on Sunday (9/19) stemmed from technical issues at the Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan (Jasuka) submarine cable communication system. 

The problems were detected from a location 1.5 kilometers off the coast of Batam at the depth of 20 meters below the ocean surface. 

Read: Jasuka Undersea Cable behind Indihome, Telkomsel Connection Issues

ZACHARIAS WURAGIL