Jakarta. After an earthquake hit Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, on Sunday (05/08), Telkom's Mataram—Sumbawa fiberoptic link has been disrupted.

"The earthquakes affected our Mataram—Sumbawa—Bima fiberoptic system. As a result, there has been a decline in our service quality, particularly of Telkomsel and high-speed internet," Telkom vice president of corporate communication Arif Prabowo said.

"Our officers are recovering the Ende—Maumere link affected by the earthquake. We've also activated a new Bima—Maumere—Makassar link with an additional capacity of 3 x 10 Gbps. Our connections are gradually recovering," he added.

Telkom has been aiding the areas affected by the earthquake by providing free telecommunications facilities and services such as phones and wireless internet in evacuation posts in Lombok's Sembalun, Bayan and Madayin.

These facilities have also been made available at the State-owned Enterprises Hadir Untuk Negeri post of Bank Mandiri and Telkom Group's emergency post at its Witel Mataram office.

Telkom has also helped build public kitchens and distributed food and medicines.

"We are still implementing mitigation measures to reduce the impact, particularly on Telkom Group's infrastructure and production equipment. We're also working with the local government to distribute aid,"Arif said.

After the earthquake, Telkom immediately deployed its crisis management team in charge of infrastructure and services recovery.

The team will monitor conditions in the field from the National Crisis Center in Jakarta and from the group's emergency post at Witel Mataram.