Syahrial Ali's Blog

On January 16th this year, President Republic of Indonesia has signed a Presidential decree no 7 about Tariff and Type of Non-Tax State Income in the Department of Communication and Information. Similar with other rule or decree, this decree valid from the date of signing. With the enactment of this decree, the previous regulation, namely Regulation No. 28 Year 2005 on the same issue is revoked and declared invalid.

However, exceptions apply to administrative sanctions from the telecommunications operation, because Article 14 mentions in full, that the imposition of tariffs on the types of non-tax state revenue derived from the Organization of Post and Telecommunications such as: a. administrative sanctions in the form of fines for violations of the permit obligation telecommunications network administration and / or basic telephony services; and b. administrative sanctions in the form of fines for breach of obligation of the organization permit value-added telephony services and multimedia services, entered into force 1 (one) year after this Government Regulation set. Hence the imposition of sanctions fines began an effective force on the date of January 16, 2010.

Although previously announced as in press releases dated February 3, 2009, and yet through this press release, the regulator wants to remind the Regulation No. 7 year 2009 to the telecommunications providers so they can prepare themselves better before the enactment of the provisions of the fine sanctions. The consequences of the implementation of such regulation can significantly impact for the telecommunications rules violator.

Below are several important things on Regulation no 7 of year 2009.
1. Administrative sanctions for non-achievable development:
- less than 40% from commitment: IDR 600m
- between 41% to 70% from commitment: IDR 400m
- between 91% to 90% from commitment: IDR 200m
2. Sanction in the form of fine for not meeting service quality standards are set according to prevailing regulation, IDR 200m / item.
3. Sanctions in the form of fines for violations due to the absence of compliance with the provision of interconnection schedule (schedule process of the answer, schedule negotiation process, the process of providing access to schedules, etc.) as stipulated in the regulations, IDR 600m / item.
4. Sanctions in the form of fines for violation of price discrimination and interconnection access, IDR 10b.
5. Sanctions in the form of fines for violations of use of domestic products due to capital expenditures that do not meet the applicable provisions, 15% x (Cons Obligations)% x Capital Expenditures / year.
6. Sanctions in the form of fines for violations of the use of domestic production due to operational expenditures that do not meet the applicable provisions, 15% x (Cons Obligations)% x Operational Expenditures / year.
7. Does not meet the minimum services which must be provided, IDR 10m / service.

(translated from www.postel.go.id)

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.

As previously written in indonesian-cellular-too-many-carriers?, Indonesia has 11 cellular operators, 5 with GSM based technology and 6 with CDMA based technology.  Every operator needs telecommunication tower. If every operator builds tower for themselves, please imagine how big cities like Jakarta will look like. There will be tower jungles which is very inefficient both in investment and aesthetic.

To overcome this problem, the Indonesian Minister of Telecommunication and Information has proposed the regulation concerning the tower colocation. In this case, many operators can use the same tower for their own telecommunication purposes. The advantages of doing this are: the investment will be less but more efficient and at the same time reducing the number of towers which make the city more beautiful.

There are two different case to implement this regulation. For new towers, the ministry regulation has obliged the operators to apply the rules that the tower should be designed and used for multi-operators. This can lead to minimum investment and less number of tower needed. For current operated tower, the owner has to open the gate for other operators to share the use of their tower. Several additional works shall be done, mainly in tower strengthen.

Others may argue that every operator has its own radio network design which does not always fit with colocated tower.  In this case, they have to adjust their design in order to comply with tower location. The regulator will provide many choices location, then the designer may choose the most suitable one for them.  Please bear in mind that there are 11 operators and tower capability is just for around 2 or 3 operators only. So every sites need around 4 towers to serve all operators.

The colocated tower is not for telecommunication only. The same thing has been implemented in broadcasting, especially television broadcasting. They have got benefit in this case. So, we have to support this regulation.

In both cases, telecommunication and broadcasting, one thing should be considered, i.e. the interference. So, please make a good design so that no party is interfered by others in implementing colocated tower.

As written in indonesian-cellular-too-many-carriers, currently there are so many operators and wireless technologies operated in Indonesia. So that, the development of wireless telecommunication business in Indonesia is extremely fast. Mobile phone has become the primary device for communication.

After that, tariff war was happened and the demand for mobile communications rise sharply.

The impacts were not only for new users, but also for current users. As the users increase sharply, some operator networks are not ready to handle all the traffics. Thus, we experienced many unsuccessful calls, call drops, call congestion etc since then. Thus the cellular businesses advancements have sacrificed several quality of services.

To overcome this situation, the Indonesian ministry of information and communication will release some new regulations concerning the minimum standard quality of services shortly. This regulation has been prepared very carefully since last year. Public consultation has also been performed.

The QoS in telecommunication industry is measured from the perspective of an expert, for instance teletraffic engineers, who are mostly from service provider itself. Will they give an honest information?

I believe that there will be a task force from directorate general post and telecommunication who will also perform ad-hoc quality measurement. And the measurement result from both parties (DG Postel and Service Provider) will be different for sure.

Is there any solution for this issue?

Yes, we have to find a tool which is installed in every users phone and reported its status to the server. In this case, the measurement will have a fair result and no way for service provider to escape.

Hi, for all of you who are careful enough to monitor Indonesian telecommunication cellular business may feel strange with the released of Hepi, a fixed wireless access services from Mobile-8. As you know, Mobile-8 has launched a Fren since a few years ago. Why this company requests another type of CDMA license, FWA?

Actually, there are two kinds of CDMA licenses in Indonesia. First, the mobile CDMA or Cellular CDMA and the second one is Fixed Wireless Access CDMA. The latter is commonly known as limited mobility (FWA-LIMO).

There are several differences between two licenses as below.

In terms of services, the subscriber of cellular CDMA can be served in countrywide, while FWA subscriber is for one area code only. You can see it from its MDN (Mobile Directory Number). Cellular CDMA has first digit 0 in his/her phone number, while the FWA CDMA numbers like the home phone number. Thus, any caller needs to dial 0 (zero) if he/she wants to call the cellular subs. For instance, 089xxxxxxx, 08811xxxxxx. Meanwhile someone from local fixed line just dials directly the FWA subs number if he/she wants to make a call.

What’s the effect of this numbering scheme? In cellular CDMA, you can go anywhere in the country and you can be called as long as your network operator coverage covers that area. On the other hand, the FWA subs does not have this facility. They have to change their number if they move to different area code, and its keep changing you go through different area code. The number will be back your original number if you are back in your home location. That’s very confusing for the user.

However, the main differences with regards to business case is the spectrum levy. This is why a cellular CDMA operator requests another type of license (FWA) to the regulator. The spectrum levy for cellular CDMA is six times of the FWA. Hence, the FWA tariff can be very low.

So, which one do you choose? Cellular CDMA with the easiness of making a call but higher tariff or the fixed wireless access CDMA with complicated numbering scheme but with cheaper tariff? I believe that the telecommunication customers in Indonesia will always choose the best operator that can provide excellent services without considering the licensing type.