Syahrial Ali’s Blog

What’s your comment about current telecommunication tariff in Indonesia? Please pay attention for the 3 biggest operators’ ads nowadays. XL claim that customers can talk for 17 hours for only Rp 1,000 (almost US$1), while Indosat informs that customers can make a voice communication with just Rp 1,000 for whole day. The biggest cellular operator, Telkomsel asks for Rp 2,000 for entire day communication.

What are thay looking for exactly? If we inspect the terms and condition, it is mentioned that the tariff is for On-net communication only, for the same network. If you are an Indosat subscribers, the tariff applies for calling to Indosat network. The same is true for XL and Telkomsel.

Yes, the operator can only play with on-net tariff. They don’t touch the off-net tariff. Why? Because the off-net tariff comprise of two parties originating and terminating network and the tariff is already agreed between them.

According to the information from each operator last year, the average revenue per user is around Rp 50,000 - Rp 60,000. By applying the daily tariff as mention above, each operator target of ARPU is still the same. 30 days mean Rp 30,000 and plus the cost of interoperator call then the average ARPU will be around Rp 50,000. So, it means that there are many ways to maintain the revenue by bundling it with variety of tariffing scheme.

Minister of Information and Communication Muhammad Nuh informed that Indonesia will launch new communication satellite (Indostar II) at around March 2009 in Baikonour, Kazakhstan. Indostar II is a joint venture between Prostar and PT MCI (Media Citra Indostar). This satellite will replace current satellite Indostar-I which its operational time will end soon. Minister in this opportunity also said that government always support any company who will provide the goodness for Indonesia.

PT MCI is really serious with plan. They invited the Minister and director general of satellite to see the development of this satellite. Previous MCI Satellite, Indostar I is the only broadcasting satellite in Indonesia S-band orbit. It serves 56 television channel and 19 network radio with digital technology and MPEG-2 broadcasting. So it serves many Indonesia people.

The new satellite, named Indostar II will have double capacity compare to the previous one. It can serve 120 MPEG-2 technology and 140 MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 technology. It will serve 2 pay TV, local televisions, network television and network radio broadcasting. With countrywide coverage, PT MCI will unify Indonesia through broadcasting.

According to the schedule released by Indonesian Directorate General of Post Telecommunication, the license of broadband wireless access (BWA) will be released by the end of this year. Participants can bring any kind of technology WiMAX, WiBRO or other kind of broadband technology which can run on the specified spectrum frequency. Among them, WiMAX will be the favorable choice.

WiMAX is a broadband wireless technology that is largely supported by the computer and the telecom industry, cost-effective and standard base. It is engineered to deliver the latest type of ubiquitous fixed and mobile services such as VoIP, Information Technology and Video at very low cost. WiMAX systems are able to cover a large geographical area, up to 50 km and to deliver significant bandwidth to end-users up to 72 Mbps (taken from WiMAX forum). (more…)

Every year BRTI (Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body) gives appreciation to the operators and other parties who have important roles in the development of telecommunication in Indonesia. On this year event which conducted in Borobudur Hotel Jakarta last night,  Bakrie Telecom and Indosat succeeded in snatching the Best Achievement Award for fixed and cellular operators respectively.

Below are the complete result:

§ Best Achievement Award for fixed operator: Bakrie Telecom, runner up: Telkom.

§ Best Achievement Award for Cellular Operator: Indosat, runner up: XL.

§ Best Printed Media : Bisnis Indonesia daily

§ Best Radio and Television: Metro TV

§ Best Online Media: detik.com

§ Lifetime Achievement: Arnold P. Djiwatampu

§ Special Rewrd: ex Director General of DG Postel Djamhari Sirat and ex BRTI members: Suryadi Azis and Soetjipto.

In deciding the winner, BRTI is helped by Frontier Research group.  The methodology for best achievement is by combining two main factors, namely the customer perspectives and the operational performances. The customer perspectives consist of customer satisfactory index and brand popularity. This part weights 55% of total mark.  While the operational performance weights only 45% which consist of network performance and service performance.

According to the latest data from DG Postel, the number of mobile prepaid subscribers in Indonesia have reached 117m on last July. If we calculate mobile phone density, then Indonesia with 240m populations has almost 50%  mobile phone density, a quite higher in number. However, the Sharing Vision surveys say that more and more people tend to have more than one mobile phone.

Actually there are at least 2 main reasons why people tend to have more than one mobile phone. The first reason is the tariff. Both GSM and CDMA have quite different tariffing scheme. People still feel that the GSM tariff is more expensive than CDMA tariff. Hence, everyone will have at least 1 GSM mobile and 1 CDMA mobile . GSM phone is used to receive a call and to maintain contact with other people. For your information, GSM technology is implemented earlier than CDMA in Indonesia, so that more people have GSM mobiles than CDMA mobiles. Meanwhile, CDMA is used to make a call because the tariff is so cheap. (more…)

Since a month ago, Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body (BRTI) has released an announcement about vacancies for their committees. On these vacancies, BRTI will recruit 5 committees which consist of expert from the field of telecommunication, information technology, public policy, law and economic. Current committee members from independent or public are: Dr. Ir. Bambang P. Adiwiyoto, M.Sc, Ir. Koesmarihati, IPM, Kamilov Sagala, SH, MH, Hery Nugroho, SE, M.Si, dan Ir. Heru Sutadi, M.Si., while from government is Prof. Abdullah Alkaff, PhD. The chairman of BRTI is Basuki Yusuf Iskandar who is also as Director General of Post and Telecommunication. Actually all independent committees have finished their service.

However, up to 5 days before the 2nd closing date only few participant who apply for the committee members. The closing date is Nov 11th, 2008. This date is actually an extension of previous closing date, Nov 4th. Only 19 participants so far and DG Postel is worry about this. Gatot Dewa S. Broto, public relation of DG Postel said that there will be a special meeting to resolve the problem.

There are many possible reasons why the interest is very low. Firstly, to be a committee member you should be an expert in the corresponding field. Secondly, some thinks that the reward that was received was not in accordance with responsibility that was carried out. And lastly, many realizes that the challenge and the responsibility of BRTI in the future will be very complicated.

Anyway, BRTI should exist. A full effort shall be done to make this body remains exist.