Indonesia plans to invest Rp 278 trillion ($21 billion) in improving broadband connectivity across the country, an official at the Ministry of Information and Communication said on Thursday.
Muhammad Budi Setiawan, director general of information and communication technology resources and standards at the ministry, said the so-called “Indonesia Broadband Plan” targets 71 percent of Indonesia’s urban area to have internet capabilities of 20 megabytes per second (Mbps) and 30 percent of urban populations to have access to it by 2019.
Meanwhile, for rural areas, the government is targeting at least 49 percent of households in villages to be covered by up to 10 Mbps internet speed and 6 percent of the population in rural areas are expected to use the fast internet access.
“We are pushing further for a better connectivity,” he told reporters in Jakarta in a discussion on Thursday, adding that the government is considering appointing state-controlled telecommunication company Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) in developing broadband networks in Indonesia.
Budi Setiawan said broadband development in Indonesia already has a captive market with government-related agencies.
He said the administration of president Joko Widodo is pushing for the implementation of e-government, e-health, e-education, e-procurement and e-logistics, meaning that the government will link all of those services online to improve transparency and efficiency.
“The captive market is there are 4.5 million civil servants, including the police and the national military force. There are also 50 million students from elementary to high school and university and 3 million teachers, “need the internet for work, homeworks. It’s very big captive market,” Iwan said.
Meanwhile, Telkom’s director for network Abdus Somad Arief said Telkom already has a program called “Indonesia Digital Network,” in which the company is developing the backbone for optical fiber infrastructure in the major islands of Indonesia.
Today, Telkom has developed up to 77,000 kilometer of optical fiber in Indonesia and as many as 13.2 million customers have enjoyed Telkom’s “Home Pass” services, or fixed-line internet services via optical fiber, which offers high speed.
“Until the end of this year, we will add five more Home Pass subscribers, so by the end of the year, the total number will be 18.2 million,” said Abdus.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Muhamad Al Azhari
Quelle/Source: The Jakarta Globe, 21.05.2015
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