On June 17, 2026, Indonesia ceremonially switched on the first operational segment of Rising 8 (SKKL), a 1,128.5-kilometer subsea cable system whose Jakarta (Tanjung Pakis)–Batam (Tanjung Bemban) leg now carries traffic between Tier-3 data centers at each end. Built by PT Ketrosden Triasmitra (IDX: KETR) and PT Ekamas Mora Republik (IDX: MORA), the system is engineered for a minimum 400 Tbps across up to 16 fiber pairs, with a Batam–Singapore extension to follow. It is, by any measure, a national achievement: laid by the Indonesian-flagged vessel Bentang Bahari and led by domestic operators rather than the usual foreign consortia.
The launch is worth celebrating. It is also a reminder of the widening gap between how fast Indonesia can lay cable and how slowly its permitting and corridor regime moves.
A buildout the rulebook can't track
Indonesia's foundational framework here is Ministerial Decree (Kepmen KP) No. 14/2021, issued by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKP) on February 18, 2021. It maps 217 designated submarine-cable corridors, 209 beach manholes, and four national landing stations — Batam, Kupang, Manado, and Jayapura. Any cable in Indonesian waters is supposed to conform to those corridors and land only at approved sites (Tempo).
The reality is messier. According to analysis by the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS), at least 145 of 327 cables deployed in Indonesian waters lie outside the designated routes, with a further tranche never brought online (CIPS). That is roughly 44% of the country's cable stock sitting off-corridor — much of it laid before the 2021 map existed, and now effectively un-mappable by the government that is supposed to protect it.
Steelman the regulators first
The case for a corridor regime is genuinely strong, and it deserves to be stated plainly rather than caricatured. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state, with waters crisscrossed by shipping lanes, fishing grounds, mining concessions, pipelines, and conservation zones. Uncoordinated cable laying creates real hazards: anchor strikes, repair conflicts, and damage to reefs. A predictable corridor map, in principle, lowers costs for everyone — operators get legal certainty about where they may lay, and the state can concentrate surveillance and rapid-repair capacity along known routes. After the 2021 decree, the government framed it as exactly this: a commitment to better marine spatial planning and clearer rules for investors.
The problem is not the goal. It is that the implementation has produced the opposite of certainty.
When coordination becomes friction
The corridor rule does not sit alone. Kepmen No. 42/2022 distributed cable-permitting responsibilities across five separate line ministries and agencies. The result, CIPS found, amplifies "overlapping institutional jurisdictions and the lack of interagency coordination," which translates directly into cost overruns. One concrete example: cable vessels have sat idle awaiting Marine Spatial Use Approval (PKKPRL) at standby costs of around $5,000 per day, while operators have been misinformed about conservation-zone boundaries because of data silos between ministries.
There is also a deeper legal tension. Under UNCLOS Article 79, all states are entitled to lay cables on the continental shelf, and a coastal state "may not impede" their laying or maintenance. Indonesia's insistence that cables conform to predetermined corridors arguably strains that freedom — what maritime lawyers describe as "creeping jurisdiction," asserting spatial control beyond what the convention contemplated (Submarine Networks). The Apricot cable project reportedly had to bend its route to fit Indonesian corridors that did not align with the most efficient engineering path. Forcing a longer, costlier route is not a neutral act — it raises the price of connectivity that Indonesian consumers and businesses ultimately pay.
What proportionate reform looks like
None of this argues for a free-for-all. It argues for matching the regulatory burden to the actual public interest — protecting marine space and infrastructure resilience — without smothering the buildout the country needs.
Three priorities stand out:
- Unify the map and the data. The 145-of-327 problem is fundamentally an information failure. A single, authoritative, machine-readable corridor and as-laid database — shared across the five permitting agencies — would do more for safety than any number of new rules. You cannot protect cables you cannot see.
- Make corridors flexible, not absolute. Corridors should be a strong default with a transparent, time-bound variance process when engineering or geology dictates a better route. A rule that forces suboptimal routes invites non-compliance, which is precisely what the data show.
- Consolidate the permit. A single-window PKKPRL process with a statutory clock would end the $5,000-a-day standby penalties that punish exactly the domestic operators — like KETR and MORA — the policy claims to encourage.
Rising 8 proves Indonesia has the industrial capacity to build world-class subsea infrastructure on its own terms. The open question is whether its rulebook will treat that capacity as something to channel, or something to throttle. A corridor regime that 44% of cables already ignore is not protecting the seabed — it is documenting its own irrelevance. Fixing it is a pro-innovation cause, not an anti-regulation one.