Papua New Guinea’s domestic subsea cable is suffering a partial outage due to a recent earthquake.

State-owned PNG DataCo announced yesterday (October 8) that its network has suffered a failure in the Madang and Alotau submarine cable link due to the recent earthquake. Services are impacted between Popondetta and Alotau.

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Lae city in Papua New Guinea on October 7, around 9pm local time.

The company said the failure was likely due to a cable break caused by the quake.

“Our Engineers are currently investigating the fault and its location to prepare for immediate restoration to the affected links. We sincerely apologize for the inconveniences caused,” the company said. “The ICT providers utilising DataCo services, please do advise your clients and utilize your redundant links if available until we fully resolve services. All links into the New Guinea Islands, Momase, and the Highlands have been restored this morning and are stabilized.”

The Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System (KSCN, formerly the PNG National Submarine Cable Network) was launched in 2019. The 5,455km (3,390 miles) system links 14 points across five islands, and also lands at Jayapura on the western, Indonesian side of New Guinea.

Owned via the government's Kumul Consolidated Holdings, PNG DataCo operates more than 7,000km (4,350 miles) of fiber, 15 cable landing stations, and a data center/teleport at the Gerehu Satellite Earth Station outside the capital, Port Moresby. Kumul Consolidated Holdings also owns local telco, Teikom.

Papua New Guinea is also the landing point for the Coral Sea Cable System (CS²) and PIPE Pacific Cable-1 (PPC-1) cable systems - linking the island to Australia, the Solomon Islands, and Guam - and is set to host the Hawaiki Nui 1 cable that will link Australia to Singapore via Indonesia. Kacific and SES provide satellite services to Papua New Guinea through Tiekom, Digicel, and Vodafone PNG.

The Indonesian half of New Guinea is only connected to other islands within Indonesia, with no international subsea cables landing there.

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea in September 2022, breaking the KSCN cable.

A 6.6-magnitude quake hit Nabire, Central Papua, on the Indonesian side of New Guinea last month. PT Telkom Indonesia had to restore telecommunications due to cable damage.

Two earthquakes hit Indonesia today off the coast of Manay, Davao Oriental. The Indonesian Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has said communications in the region remain stable – though there was a brief two-hour period of “instability.”