Ahead of Submarine Networks World 2025, Telecom Review Asia sat down with Abdul Rahman Ansyori, fondly known as Bang Herry, the Chief Technology Officer of Telin. In this exclusive interview, he shared how Telin is staying future-ready, growing with the ecosystem, and preparing for the massive capacity demands being driven by AI and digital transformation.
How is Telin ensuring its infrastructure developments remain relevant and future-ready amid rapid shifts in global data demand and digital transformation?
Telin has been around for 18 years now as a global telco company from Indonesia, and we are continuously growing. Within the company, we make sure everyone has the freedom to keep learning and stay up to date with new skills and technology. Beyond that, we focus on growing as part of a wider ecosystem, because we believe that when the ecosystem grows, we grow too.
Our vision is to become the digital infrastructure and platform partner of choice for enterprises and hyperscalers, helping ecosystems grow across the Asia Pacific. To stay aligned with this vision, we are strengthening our capabilities, expanding our ecosystem, and delivering innovative, reliable, and future-ready solutions.
AI is a real game changer. In just the past few years, we’ve seen rapid shifts fueled by technological innovation and the rise of AI. It is bandwidth-hungry and requires low-latency, geographically distributed infrastructure, which significantly changes traffic patterns and capacity demand. Tech giants are even buying up entire data centers — our Batam facility, for instance, is already fully sold out.
🎥Watch This Exclusive Interview: Five-Year Focus: Telin Strengthens Global Connectivity with Three Core Priorities
This drives the need for robust interconnectivity between data centers and fuels subsea cable investments across APAC. Geopolitical challenges, such as those in the South China Sea, are also pushing for new, diverse routes to ensure resilience.
At Telin, we have four basic design principles for every subsea cable project:
- Unique Routes: Every new system must take a distinct path to improve resilience.
- Various Landings: Each cable lands at different stations to ensure redundancy.
- Ultra-Low Latency: Meeting the needs of real-time digital services.
- Direct DC-to-DC Access: Connecting cables directly to data centers for higher-quality capacity.
Projects like Bifrost, SJC2, and SMW6 follow these principles, and we are now working on Indonesia Cable Express (ICE), a large-scale initiative that will consist of 12 submarine systems connecting Indonesia to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and North America by 2028. ICE will interconnect the Asia Pacific’s data center hubs and ensure Telin remains the preferred partner for hyperscalers and enterprises.
Interesting Read: Telin and Indosat Partner to Boost Indonesia’s Connectivity with ICE System 2
Can you share the latest updates on the Bifrost cable system and what its readiness means for Telin and your regional connectivity strategy?
Bifrost will be ready for service by the end of October 2025. This is an important milestone for Telin because Bifrost enhances our connectivity between Southeast Asia and North America, complementing our existing IGG-US cable system. While IGG-US still serves the market well, Bifrost provides additional capacity and diversity, something customers now demand more than ever.
Bifrost is strategic not only for Telin but also for Indonesia’s digital ecosystem. It strengthens resiliency, scalability, and readiness for the digital future, while positioning Indonesia’s waters as an alternative global route amid geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea.
To maximize resilience, we have built two international gateways: one in Batam (East) and one in Manado (West). Bifrost will land in Manado, turning it into a second major international gateway. This improves national traffic diversity, provides equitable access for eastern Indonesia, and delivers up to 43% latency improvement, while significantly enhancing the customer experience.
Telin recently launched a new cable landing station (CLS) in Indonesia. What are some of the key infrastructure developments Telin is undertaking to enhance international connectivity and performance?
We currently operate 14 global submarine cables and have capacity in another 14 systems and we’re not stopping there, as we know future demand will only grow.
In July 2025, we completed the SJC2 cable system, and by the end of October 2025, we’ll finish Bifrost. We’re also contributing to the SMW6 deployment and pushing forward with the ICE initiative, with ICE-1 connecting Indonesia to Singapore on track for completion in Q2 2026.
As one of our key infrastructure priorities, we are building new cable landing stations to create more resilient infrastructure:
- Batam: New Nongsa Digital Park CLS (in addition to Tanjung Bemban CLS)
- Manado: New CLS for Bifrost, separate from our CUS CLS
- Jakarta: CLS Tanjung Pakis, a diverse landing for CLS Pluit
Beyond the CLS, we ensure diversity in backhaul connectivity, bringing traffic directly from CLS to major data centers in Indonesia to improve service reliability and performance.
Read More: Telin Launches Manado-Minahasa Cable Landing Station in Indonesia
As CTO, what are the biggest technical or strategic challenges you foresee in deploying next-generation infrastructure, and how is Telin preparing to address them?
Being a CTO is not an easy task. I am responsible for orchestrating operations and technology, and while that can sometimes be tough, it’s my job to make sure Telin is ready for the future.
Our first challenge is capacity. AI, 5G, and digital transformation are driving exponential growth in demand, and while our current cables are sufficient for the near term, they will not meet mid- to long-term requirements.
Our strategy is twofold:
- Short-Term: Maximize capacity on existing cables through technology upgrades.
- Long-Term: Build new systems like ICE, which will include 12 submarine cables connecting APAC to the rest of the world.
Another challenge is hub concentration. Today, APAC subsea systems are heavily concentrated in Singapore. While Singapore remains a vital global hub, this creates a single point of failure. We are working to distribute connectivity to other hubs such as Batam, Manado, Surabaya, and Makassar, to make Indonesia a multi-city hub and ensure robust connectivity to the region.
We are also seeing a shift toward ultra-high-capacity “fat” systems with up to 24 fiber pairs. These will be key to meeting future demand. However, we face constraints such as vessel scarcity and limited manufacturing capacity. There are only four major global suppliers, and they are booked with OTT projects.
Finally, we are committed to sustainability. Every CLS we build follows a green concept, and at least 25% of our electricity already comes from renewable energy. We aim to grow not just as a business, but as an ecosystem, in a way that is sustainable for the environment.
