A senior official at Indonesia's state-run telecommunication firm, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia ( Telkom), said on Thursday that development of fiber optic telecommunication network has commenced in the country's eastern region, aimed at narrowing information technology (IT) gap between west and east regions.

"We are expecting to entirely settle the telecommunication infrastructure projects in the second half 2014," Telkom Enterprise and Wholesale Director Mohammad Awaluddin said in Banyuwangi, East Java as quoted by the Tempo online.

He said that fiber optic network projects will serve key cities of Gorontalo, Manado, Ternate, Ambon, Sorong and Timika in the eastern region.

According to Awaluddin, telecommunication in eastern region is heavily served by satellite as of now.

He said that fiber optic technology would reduce the burden of satellite in serving telecommunication in the region thus speeding up the data transferring.

Due to its tough geographical condition and location that is far from the country's center of business, eastern region has been facing tougher problems in telecommunication and transportation sector as most of islands in the region are separated by deep and vast waters.

Besides projects to develop telecommunication infrastructure in eastern region, Telkom also planned to improve its broadband service network for business across the country by setting up 20 million Kompass broadband in Indonesian cities by 2017.