NEC completes Indonesia's new subsea cable system

The Patara-2 submarine cable system, owned by Telkom Indonesia, is complete and operational. The new cable system, supplied by NEC, connects several islands across Indonesia.

Spanning the distance of 1,200 kilometers, the Patara-2 is a 100Gbit/s x 80 wavelengths x 2 fiber pairs optical fiber submarine cable system. In addition to the existing Sulawesi Maluku Papua Cable System (SMPCS) and others in Indonesia provided by NEC, this new cable system enhances connectivity in the Indonesian towns of Waisai, Manokwari and Supiori.

"Both the Patara-2 and SMPCS cable systems enable the network in the north of Papua to have a redundant configuration, providing highly reliable communications in Papua," said Herlan Wijanarko, director of network & IT at Telkom.

NEC has been a major cable supplier for several submarine cable projects of Telkom Indonesia since 1991, including the Indonesia Global Gateway (IGG) and SMPCS.

"We have laid more than 10 submarine cable systems in the region and are proud to continue contributing to the expansion of Indonesia's connectivity," said Atsushi Kuwahara, managing director of the submarine network division at NEC.

Long-distance field trial

Meanwhile, NEC has also recently completed a long-distance field trial on the IGG cable system owned by Telkom Indonesia. The trial involved using NEC's latest XF3200 transponder, which the Japanese cable manufacturer says has the world's highest level of transmission performance at 800 Gbit/s.

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"NEC has been an important partner for us in submarine cable systems for many years. This field trial proves that NEC's high-quality submarine optical transmission technology has further evolved, thereby helping to meet the increasing traffic demands throughout Indonesia," said Toto Sugiharto, executive general manager of the infrastructure planning division at Telkom.

In the field trial, NEC conducted wavelength division optical transmission of 800Gbit/s signals over 2,100 km, the longest ever recorded.

During the trial, the XF3200 transponder supported approximately 30% higher transmission capacity than existing products that are out in the market, the Japanese company said, which means that it can meet the escalating demand for seamless data transmission.

The new transponder also demonstrated capabilities that contribute to a lower total cost of ownership. These features include low power consumption, high scalability, flexible serviceability and space efficiency.

"We will continue to explore the limits of even greater subsea capacity, flexibility and cost-effectiveness," said Yoshihisa Inada, senior director of the submarine network division at NEC.