Digital Edge empowers Indonesia’s digitalization with high-speed data center interconnect

The challenge

Navigating the fast-paced development of Indonesia

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world with rapidly growing GDP and intensifying digitalization. This is driving up bandwidth needs at an exponential rate. The country’s rapid growth, especially in the Jakarta capital region, means numerous construction projects and other factors can impact fiber availability, causing fiber cuts or other issues.

Rahman Isnaini, Head of Global Operations Center at Indonet, explains what this means for data center interconnect in Indonesia:

“In Indonesia, fiber availability is a challenge, and so steps must be taken to secure fiber, ensuring SLAs and customer requirements are met. Two key network design considerations are to protect every single fiber segment and to double the usual two network routes to four. This results in non-standard building practices, putting extra demands on redundancy and cost efficiency,” says Rahman.

The Solution

Delivering reliable 400G with confidence

To meet the growing demand for 100G and 400G links, Digital Edge partnered with Smartoptics to light up an 800G-ready multi-site ring network interconnecting data centers across the greater Jakarta area with the latest in optical networking technology. The solution ensures strong redundancy, supporting Digital Edge’s growth journey.

“We created a triangular 3-node ring in a non-standard build with advanced technology providing both direct and indirect fiber segment protection and four routes from each site. Smartoptics supported us every step of the way, helping ensure we got everything up and running smoothly and that it was in spec with sufficient optical power. With Smartoptics on our side, we feel confident we can deliver top-notch service to our customers,” says Rahman.

Big technology – small form factor

The Smartoptics solution is centered around the 800G-ready DCP-R-34D ROADM. The ROADMs are easy to manage with the SoSmart software suite. The DCP-404 muxponder is also used to aggregate 4x100G, maximizing fiber utilization. The solution is designed for maximum cost efficiency, helping Digital Edge and Indonet provide competitive services. 

Raphael Ho, Head of Interconnect Engineering and Operations, Digital Edge, explains: 

“Indonet is maintaining its competitive position in the rapidly growing Indonesian market by deploying Smartoptics high-speed networking equipment with excellent capital and operational efficiency. Their solutions pack modern technology and performance into compact, energy-efficient hardware that makes the most of each fiber pair. This way, we can offer higher capacity to customers at a lower cost, which is well aligned with current APAC market trends,” says Raphael.

The Result

High-speed Data Center Interconnect key to further APAC market growth

The innovative and competitive network architecture in Jakarta that resulted from this initial project will be replicated and scaled to other strategic locations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Digital Edge and Smartoptics are also planning to rapidly deploy 800G later in 2025 in Jakarta to preempt further demand increases and exponentially raise cost efficiency.

“Data Center Interconnect will play a major role in our growth plans throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including both dark fiber and lit services. Not only Indonesia but also many other markets in the region are growing and digitalizing at an incredible pace. We are planning to launch more high-speed Data Center Interconnect services as we build more data centers across the region, boosting capacity in our current markets and entering new markets. Smartoptics fits like well with the needs of these markets, and we are excited to continue to deliver world-class high-speed services together to meet this vast potential,” says Raphael.

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