Syahrial Ali's Blog

Palapa Ring a project to connect East Indonesia with fiber optic. The project contains of 6 sections, namely Section 1 (Mataram – Parigi), Section 2 (Palu – Sorong), Section 3 (Makasar – Sorong), Section 4 (Makasar – Mataram/Kupang), Section 5 (Sorong – Jayapura), Section 6 (Fakfak – Merauke). Previously this project will performed by a consortium with 6 members company, i.e: PT Telkom, PT Indosat, PT Excelcomindo Pratama, PT Bakrie Telecom, PT Infokom Elektrindo, dan PT Powertek Utama Internusa). However, after almost 2 years, the consortium members has reduced to 3 company only namely: PT Telkom, PT Indosat, and PT Bakrie Telecom.

PT Telkom will start to build both inland and submarine cable from Mataram to Kupang. The declaration of this project will be done in Mataram on September 27th, 2009 by the Indonesian Ministry of Information and Technology. This day is a Indonesian Post and Telecommunication Day. An ice breaking action from PT Telkom. This route which consist of Mataram – Kawinda Nae = 292,3 km; Kawinda Nae – Raba = 142,5 km; Raba – Waingapu = 307,5 km; Waingapu – Ende = 210,1 km; and Ende – Kupang = 285,4 km).

Meanwhile, the Consortium (PT Telkom, PT Indosat and PT Bakrie Telecom) will build inland cable and submarine cable from Manado, Ternate, Sorong, Ambon, Kendari to Makassar. The route consist of Manado – Bitung = 58 km ; Bitung – Ternate = 303,3 km; Ternate – Sorong = 658,5 km; Sorong – Ambon = 722,8 km; Ambon – Kendari = 778,5 km; and Kendari – Kolaka = 192 km, Kolaka – Watampone = 156,3 km, Watampone – Bulukumba = 157 km and Bulukumba – Makassar = 194 km. All routes shall be finished on May 2011.

With this project, East Indonesia will have an excellent data communication access. Congratualtion.

Telkomsel and Indosat, the first and second largest cellular telecommunication in Indonesia get their additional bandwidth for 3G services from the regulator. Telkomsel and Indosat are two out of five 3G operators which agrees to regulator offered for 5MHz additional bandwidth. Hence, both operators have 10 MHz 3G bandwidth. Meanwhile, three other operators, Excelcomindo Pratama (XL), Natrindo Telepon Seluler (Axis), and Hutchison CP Telecom (Three/3), didn’t agree with the price offered by government.

With these additional bandwidth, both Telkomsel and Indosat will enhance their data services for their customers. Indosat was the leader in data services with more than 2 millions subscribers. Telkomsel claims that they have more than 8 millions 3G active subscribers with 1.2 million of them are data services subscriber with the product called flash. Their target is about 5-6m subscribers at the end of 2009. Additional bandwith also means they both are far ahead of their competitors, XL, HCP and Axis.

Why other operators do not want to pay for additional bandwidth?
There are several reasons for this, such as their current bandwidth is not fully occupied, too expensive, etc. The price offered is same with 2006 tender price, i.e: IDR 160b per year. In my opinion, the main reason is there is no urgency to add more bandwidth for these operators as the current bandwidth is still sufficient enough to serve their subscribers.