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Indonesia to build digital information highway
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Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara (center) laughs during a working meeting with House of Representatives Commission I overseeing intelligence, security and foreign affairs. The minister has said the government plans to build an information highway with its ambitious Palapa Ring project, which will provide broadband services for hundreds of cities in 2019. (Antara/M. Agung Rajasa)
T
he government plans to develop an information highway through its ambitious Palapa Ring project, which will provide broadband services for hundreds of cities in 2019, aiming to resolve slow internet speeds, especially in eastern Indonesia.
“This is what we call an information highway. So, all regency and municipal capital cities will be connected to broadband services by Jan. 1, 2019,” Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Currently, people in Jakarta can enjoy download speeds of up to seven megabytes per second, 25 times faster than in Maluku or Papua, which reach only 300 kilobytes per second, the minister added.
“It happens because the infrastructure has yet to reach all regions in the country. Just 400 out of 514 regency and municipal capital cities have been connected to broadband services,” said Rudiantara.
The Palapa Ring project, which will involve laying down 11,000 kilometers of undersea fiber-optic cables, will be divided into three sections: the West, Central and East packages.
Rudiantara officially signed on March 4 an agreement for the development of the Central Package with Len Telekomunikasi Indonesia, which will lay down 2,700 km of undersea fiber-optic cables connecting Kalimantan, Sulawesi and North Maluku.
The cooperation agreement for the West Package, which will be developed by Mora Telematika Indonesia, was signed on March 7. The project will lay down 2,000 km of submarine fiber-optic cables that aims to connect Riau province, Riau Islands and Natuna Islands, off Sumatra.
Rudiantara said construction for the Central and West packages would start by the end of this year, with costs estimated at Rp 1.38 trillion (US$104.51 million) and Rp 1.28 trillion, respectively.
Meanwhile, the East Package is still in the prequalification stage. It will connect East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, West Papua, and remote places in Papua. Currently, seven companies have registered for the tender, with a contract expected to be signed in September.
“In December 2015, President Joko Widodo instructed Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono to complete road construction that would connect all regencies in Papua by 2018. So we decided to go along with Pak Basuki to build ducting there,” Rudiantara said. (vps/bbn)
