REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom) through its subsidiary PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Internasional (Telin) has joined the consortium of South East Asia-United States (SEA-US) to build sea cable to create direct internet access from Indonesia to the United States.
"So far the internet traffic hubs in Asia are in Singapore, Hong Kong, or Japan. Telkom wants Indonesia to become an internet hub for Asia as it has the potential," Telkom President Director Arief Yahya said on the sidelines of the signing of the SEA-US sea cable consortium agreement on Thursday.
The consortium of SEA-US groups seven global companies -- Telin, Telekomunikasi Indonesia International Inc. which is a subsidiary of Telin, Globe Telecom, GTI Telecom, RAM Telecom International (RTI), Teleguam Holdings (GTA) and Hawaiian Telcom.
The project, which is valued at 250 million USD, will provide an additional capacity of 20Tb/second, to link Indonesia and the Philippines, the United States using the technology of 100G that could receive demand for bandwidth between the two continents.
"The sea cable communications system will have a stable connectivity and would become the only sea cable system that links Southeast Asia and the United States with a route safe from areas prone earthquake in East Asia," Yahya said.
The infrastructure is 15,000 kilometer long extending between Indonesia and the United States.
The SEA-US sea cable will link five areas and territories - Manado (Indonesia), Davao (the Philippines), Piti (Guam), Oahu (Hawaii, United States), and Los Angeles (California, United States).
"The SEA-US sea cable is the first sea cable project that links eastern Indonesia and the United States , connected with the infrastructure of Telkom that it could provide the lowest latency from Indonesia to the United States compared with other existing international sea cable system," Yahya said.
Upon its operation in 2016, the SEA-US sea cable system, through connections with the sea cable of Indonesia Global Gateway (Manado-Dumai), would be integrated with the the sea cables of SEA-ME-WE 5 which is owned by Telin , Asia America Gateway (AAG), South East Asia Japan Cable System (SJC), and the Batam Singapore Cable System (BSCS), Dumai Malaka Cable System (DMSC), Thailand-Indonesia-Singapore (TIS) and other domestic cable systems.
It could , therefore, would create a configuration of comprehensive network in connecting Asia, Europe, the United States and Indonesia, Yahya said. In the first semester of 2014 Telkom was estimated to post an income of 43.54 trillion IDR with profit at 7.411 trillion IDR.