Completion of cable network to boost connectivity

THE roll out of system one of the Kumul submarine cable network (KSCN) was concluded yesterday when the submarine cable landed in Arawa, Bougainville.
The 5,457km submarine cable connects the coastal provinces in the country from West Sepik to East Sepik, Manus, Madang, West New Britain, New Ireland, East New Britain and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
PNG Dataco Ltd managing director Paul Komboi said this infrastructure would provide an abundance of information throughout the country and would link all island provinces together with the mainland and central agencies in Port Moresby.
“This means that sectors such as education, health, transport, civil registry, commerce and industry, finance, agriculture and tourism will now use cloud computing to propel their growth,” he said.
“It will also reduce, cost, time and improve quality and reliability of services for our social economic growth.
“Our country can now consolidate its efforts in meeting our challenges in a collective and collaborative manner more effectively and efficiently.”
The cable will provide the domestic internet platform to link 14 provinces and two national data centres in Port Moresby and Madang and connect to Jakarta through Indonesia’s national backbone submarine cable network and further connect to Asia to form a new international internet gateway. The provinces connected will become stakeholders to a massive infrastructure that is expected to transform telecommunication services in the country and open up opportunities for economic growth and development benefits including tourism.
The infrastructure is said to facilitate, stimulate and foster social and economic development in the country through increased access and availability at affordable prices for essential broadband communications services. The KSCN is part of PNG Dataco’s broader objective to support the government’s ICT policy objectives by building, owning and operating a national broadband transmission network.