Jayapura, Papua (ANTARA) - Indonesia's telecommunication giant PT Telkom claimed that Jayapura City's residents were able to get Internet access, as it ceaselessly endeavors to repair its undersea cables that are in a broken state since April 30, 2021.

The Internet connection bandwidth, however, still reaches 4.7 Gbps, or still lesser than its normal bandwidth, recorded at 150 Gbps, Head of the PT Telkom-Papua Office Sugeng Widodo informed ANTARA here on Monday.

Internet connectivity in Jayapura, the capital of Papua Province, and its neighborhood areas are facilitated by several base transceiver stations (BTS), Widodo remarked, adding that the Internet Protocol issue in Sarmi District was also fixed.

Services offered by PT Telkom in Jayapura City and the districts of Jayapura and Sarmi were disrupted since April 30 after breakage of its undersea fiber optic cables, located between Sarmi and Biak.

In the wake of this PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia's (Telkom's) undersea cable break, Widodo has recently disclosed that a vessel to repair its undersea cables would arrive shortly in Jayapura.

The vessel was scheduled to arrive at the Jayapura City port on May 25-27 for refueling and loading fresh water and food stocks, he remarked.

The ship will thereafter head to targeted sites for repairing the cables laid on about the 4,000-meter-deep ocean floor, Widodo noted.

During the mission, PT Telkom has invited journalists from several media outlets to observe the company's efforts to repair the broken undersea cables, he stated.

The company requires a month's time to solve the problem and has striven to offer partial satellite-based services to its affected customers, though they could not be optimally served, according to Widodo.

Regarding this PT Telkom's undersea cable break, the Papua provincial administration has urged community members to remain calm and to not respond to rumors around sabotage and cable break.

"This undersea fiber optic cable breakage, which occurred some 700 kilometers away from the waters of Sarmi District, is a force majeure," Papua provincial government's secretary, Dance Yulian Flassy, had stated earlier.

Related news: Undersea cable break: Papuans urged not to believe sabotage rumors
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Translator: Hendrina DK, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Suharto
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