Singapore, 29 – 30 September 2021 – Terrapinn once again hosted its annual submarine communications industry gathering, Submarine Networks, running from Wednesday, September 29th until Friday, October 1st, 2021 in a virtual format. As the world's leading annual submarine communications gathering, Submarine Networks World brings together over 800 industry leaders from more than 300 organisations. Telin’s Chief Technology Officer, Nanang Hendarno, was featured as a keynote speaker and participated as a panelist on two consecutive days, where he shared his insight as a key players in the global subsea community.
On the first day of the event, Nanang talked about Telin’s experience pioneering the world’s first direct transpacific cable from the USA to Southeast Asia, called the Bifrost Cable System. The submarine cable system is being developed to bridge the projected gap between addressable demand and total demand for transpacific connectivity.
“The Bifrost Cable System will cater to the burgeoning need for connectivity between Southeast Asia and North America, offering competitive pricing, capacity resilience and direct connection with minimal hops through critical hubs in Asia (Singapore) and the USA, towards supporting regional governments and business growth.”
The Bifrost Cable System offers a unique alternative route and network diversity as it connects Singapore and USA through Indonesia. From Singapore, it lands in Jakarta (near the city’s Point of Presence) before connecting to Indonesia’s new capital city in Kalimantan (near Balikpapan), and connecting to the Indonesia East Gateway cable in the city of Manado) en route to the USA.
On the second day, Nanang appeared in a keynote panel session together with Avaroa Cable CEO Ranulf Scarbrough, PNG DataCo CEO, Paul Komboi, IslaLink CEO Esther Garces, and Marine-Digicel Group CTO Alasdair Wilkie to discuss the topic “Connecting Island Nations”. The moderator, McCann Consulting’s Managing Director Paul McCann, highlighted the overall objective of the panel was to examine some of the major factors that need to be considered when “Connecting Island Nations”. It is generally recognised that each island or region is different and so the factors for each area may differ.
“Submarine cables are at this point the main infrastructure needed to cater to connectivity demand around the world. Expanding them is a challenge in the industry as one must lok at the investment needed and fulfill compliance requirements in all the countries that they pass. In terms of competition, all players view the development as a collaborative effort of which one of its forms is a consortium.” said Nanang in the panel session.
He added, “In Indonesia, a country with many islands, the submarine cable systems that we own are especially beneficial in feasibly connecting remote island to the world. In terms of diversity, the combination of submarine cable, radio and satellite offers backup connectivity for small islands through swap capacity or partnership with other players,” Nanang said.