Morotai, Indonesia

Morotai, Indonesia: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Morotai is an island located in North Maluku province, Indonesia, situated in the eastern reaches of the Indonesian archipelago. As a landing point for submarine cable infrastructure, it forms part of Indonesia's extensive national network, which spans 139 landing points across the country. One submarine cable lands at Morotai, connecting it to Indonesia's broader domestic communications fabric.

The cable serving Morotai is the Palapa Ring Middle, a domestic Indonesian cable system that links multiple points entirely within the country. This intra-national routing reflects the particular character of Morotai as a landing point: rather than serving as a gateway to international connectivity, it functions as a node within Indonesia's internal submarine cable grid, extending network reach into the North Maluku region.

Cables Landing at Morotai

The Palapa Ring Middle is the sole submarine cable landing at Morotai. The system stretches approximately 2,100 kilometres and reached ready-for-service (RFS) status in 2018. All endpoints on this cable are located within Indonesia, making it a purely domestic cable system. The Palapa Ring Middle is part of Indonesia's national effort to connect its many islands through submarine cable infrastructure, and Morotai represents one of the terminal or intermediate landing points along its route.

Regional Context

Within Indonesia's submarine cable landscape, Morotai hosts a single cable, placing it among the more lightly served landing points in the country. Major Indonesian hubs such as Batam (20 cables), Jakarta (9 cables), Tanjung Pakis (9 cables), and Manado (8 cables) serve substantially higher cable volumes, while Morotai's single-cable presence reflects its role as a regional endpoint rather than a transit hub. Nevertheless, with 70 submarine cables landing across 139 points in Indonesia, Morotai occupies a place in the upper 62 percent of the country's landing points by cable count, underscoring that many Indonesian locations are served by similarly modest cable connections.

Network Role

Morotai functions as a single-cable terminus on the Palapa Ring Middle system, receiving domestic submarine connectivity to an island regency with a population that, as of mid-2023, stood at approximately 80,566 residents. The corridor enabled by the Palapa Ring Middle is entirely intra-Indonesian, linking Morotai to other parts of the archipelago without direct international routing through this landing point. This domestic orientation is consistent with the purpose of the Palapa Ring programme, which was designed to bring submarine cable connectivity to underserved regions of the Indonesian island chain.

In the broader Indonesian submarine cable graph, Morotai represents the reach of national infrastructure into North Maluku, demonstrating how domestic cable systems extend connectivity to island communities that would otherwise be served only by satellite or microwave links. Its single-cable status distinguishes it clearly from the multi-cable hubs concentrated in western Indonesia, positioning Morotai as a terminus node serving a geographically remote but populated segment of the national network.