PNG DataCo services plagued by cable breaks, power hiccups and vandals

Details: John Tanner; Category: Operators; 28 September 2026; 2907 views

Papua New Guinea’s state-owned telecoms network wholesaler PNG DataCo revealed on Sunday that recent service disruptions over the past month were due to separate incidents involving power supply problems, vandalism and subsea cable faults.

PNG DataCo said services associated with the Gerehu Earth Station, its nearby data centre, and cable landing stations at Kerema and Daru were disrupted starting September 19 due to commercial power supply issues.

The cause was found to be abnormal power phase rotation following maintenance works on the power network by PNG Power Ltd. Power to the Gerehu facilities were restored on September 21, while services to Kerema and Daru were restored on 23 September.

Also on September 19, a terrestrial fibre optic cable along the Madang–Yonki corridor was damaged as a result of vandalism, resulting in disruption of services to Lae, Yonki and the Highlands Region. The cable was repaired and all services restored by September 21.

Meanwhile, PNG DataCo said it detected a fault on a branch of its Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System connecting Vanimo on August 25, which has impacted point-to-point (P2P), IEPL and wholesale internet services in Sandaun Province.

Repair preparations are underway, and PNG DataCo said it aims to restore subsea connectivity services to Vanimo by October 23.

PNG DataCo also advised customers that a break on the Australia–Singapore Cable (ASC) that occurred earlier this month is also contributing to degraded performance, increased latency or intermittent accessibility on some internet services and content hosted in Asia, although the ASC doesn’t directly connect to Papua New Guinea.

PNG DataCo said ASC owner Vocus has rerouted traffic on alternative network paths until the cable can be repaired. The break is located on the ASC link between Indonesia and Singapore.