Kerema, Papua New Guinea

Kerema: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Kerema is the capital of Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea, situated on the coast of the Gulf of Papua. As a coastal settlement on Papua New Guinea's southern shoreline — a region characterised by large river deltas draining the highlands — Kerema provides a natural point at which submarine cable infrastructure can connect the mainland with broader domestic and international networks. One submarine cable lands at Kerema, linking it into Papua New Guinea's emerging undersea connectivity framework.

That cable, the Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System, is the sole submarine link serving Kerema. Its presence reflects Papua New Guinea's broader effort to extend domestic submarine cable coverage across a geographically fragmented nation. The Kumul system connects multiple points within Papua New Guinea and also reaches Indonesia, establishing a corridor that combines intra-national domestic connectivity with a cross-border link to a neighbouring country.

Cables Landing at Kerema

The Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System is a 5,457 km cable that reached ready-for-service status in 2019. In addition to Kerema, the cable connects other landing points within Papua New Guinea and extends to Indonesia. Its substantial length reflects the scale of Papua New Guinea's coastline and the distances involved in linking the country's dispersed communities, as well as bridging the maritime boundary to Indonesia. The system carries the designation "draft" status in available records.

Regional Context

Within Papua New Guinea's submarine cable geography, Kerema sits among a group of landing points each served by a single cable — alongside Alotau, Arawa, Daru, and Kavieng. Port Moresby leads the country with four cables, while Madang hosts two. Kerema's single-cable status places it in the larger cohort of Papua New Guinea landing points that serve as terminus nodes rather than multi-cable hubs, consistent with the country's pattern of distributing domestic connectivity across numerous coastal communities.

Network Role

Kerema functions as a single-cable terminus on the Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System, connecting it to a network that spans both domestic Papua New Guinea routing and a cross-border link to Indonesia. The landing point enables connectivity for the Gulf Province capital, a coastal community that would otherwise be reliant on terrestrial or satellite options across a challenging riparian and delta landscape.

As one of fifteen submarine cable landing points in Papua New Guinea, Kerema represents the extension of undersea infrastructure beyond the country's primary hub at Port Moresby into provincial centres. Its place in the regional submarine cable graph illustrates how Papua New Guinea has progressively expanded domestic cable coverage to serve geographically isolated coastal communities along the Gulf of Papua.