TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsIndonesia needs a stronger legal backbone for its subsea cables
Indonesia is crisscrossed by global data routes yet lacks a unified mechanism to govern what happens beneath its own seas.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Remote connection: Asmat tribespeople try a smartphone on June 1, 2023, in the rural district of Agats in Asmat regency, South Papua. (Antara/Aditya Pradana Putra)
I
ndonesia’s digital future does not rest on satellites orbiting Earth, nor on skyscrapers filled with servers. It runs through cables resting silently on the seabed. These subsea fiber-optic cables, or Sistem Komunikasi Kabel Laut (SKKL), carry nearly all the world’s internet traffic. Every message, video call and financial transaction travels through this undersea web that binds continents and connects economies.
For an archipelagic country of 17,000 islands, subsea cables are not just infrastructure; they are lifelines. Indonesia now operates more than 56 active systems with over 115,000 kilometers of undersea cables, linking Java to Papua and connecting the nation to global data networks.
Yet despite this impressive scale, Indonesia’s cable governance remains fragmented. No single institution truly holds the mandate to manage, monitor and protect these vital arteries of the digital age.
Currently, every subsea cable passing through Indonesian waters must navigate a labyrinth of overlapping jurisdictions. The Communications and Digital Ministry regulates telecommunications; the Maritime Affair and Fisheries Ministry oversees marine spatial planning; and the Transportation Ministry licenses marine operations. Meanwhile, the Navy ensures maritime security and even local governments control landing points along the coast.
This complexity might have worked when digital traffic was modest. However, today’s bandwidth demands - driven by cloud computing, 6G preparation and artificial intelligence - require rapid deployment, reliability and security. Instead, many operators face approval processes that are slow, costly and uncertain, with delays caused not by technical challenges but by fragmented inter-agency coordination.
The result is a governance paradox. Indonesia is crisscrossed by global data routes yet lacks a unified mechanism to govern what happens beneath its own seas. In an era when data sovereignty is as critical as territorial sovereignty, this gap exposes the nation to strategic and economic risks.
This year, the government established the National Subsea Cable Team under the Coordinating Food Affairs Ministry (Decree No. 5/2025), continuing the work of a previous task force. The appointment, while unconventional, signals a strategic acknowledgment that governing undersea infrastructure requires a whole-of-government approach.
