Indonesia completes cable to bring internet to remote east

Indonesia has completed the last leg of a 13,000-kilometer fiber-optic network that will bring high-speed internet to some of its poorest regions in the country’s east, including the restive region of Papua, Reuters reports.
The cable to carry telecommunication, which goes via land and under the sea, as well as microwave transmissions and telco towers, cost 7.63 trillion rupiah (US$540.18 million) to build, according to a government website on public-private partnerships.
The final leg, called the East Palapa Ring project, consisted of a 6,878-kilometer cable connecting Papua, some islands in the Maluku region and East Nusa Tenggara, according to a statement by the Cabinet Secretariat.
President Joko Widodo said the project should provide “a sense of justice” for Indonesians who live in the eastern part of the country, because they will be able to access internet with the same speed as others in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
The government completed the West Palapa Ring project covering the western half of the country in March 2018, while construction for similar infrastructure in the center of Indonesia was finished earlier this year.
“This should strengthen our trade, connecting small and medium enterprises’ products to national, even global networks,” Widodo said in a statement, calling the project a “highway in the sky”.
The president urged Indonesians not to use the internet to spread fake news and hate speech.
Widodo did not refer to any particular incident, but Papua, which encompasses Indonesia’s two easternmost provinces, has seen an upsurge in protests and unrest for weeks. The government curbed the internet temporarily in response.
Security forces said the most deadly incident, during which 33 people were killed in the town of Wamena on Sept. 23, was triggered by a hoax about racial slurs made against students by a teacher.
A former Dutch colony, Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after a disputed vote of about 1,025 hand-picked tribal leaders. The result of the plebiscite was overseen and endorsed by the United Nations.
– Contact us at [email protected]
CG
-
Energising HK's creative industries through cultural big data Dr. Winnie Tang
The government has planned to allocate nearly HK$300 million for the development of Art Tech. How can the funding effectively improve the level of local culture and arts, and further consolidate Hong
-
How to well spend the HK$300 million allocated to art tech? Dr. Winnie Tang
Local movie director Chu Yuan passed away earlier. In a lament, film critic Ka Ming recalled Chu's five masterpieces in the 1960s and 1970s. In his remark, Ka criticised that like most old Hong Kong
-
A cross-border ‘yellow cow’ story Ben Kwok
Almost all overseas fellows of my age that I know came to Hong Kong during the pandemic only for one reason: to meet their parents as much as possible. But in order to see their parents in person,
-
Advancing responsible business conduct Hanscom Smith
We need only look at the front-page news to see that companies are reassessing their business practices in areas ranging from preventing and addressing forced labor in their supply chains,
-
Re-opening Hong Kong a must Brian YS Wong
Hong Kong’s value to its country remains its openness, cosmopolitanism, and fundamental willingness to embrace and take on the unknown. It is its internationalism, as opposed to inward-looking