The center was funded by Telkomsel, the country’s leading telecommunications provider, which was quickly followed by rivals XL and Indosat with 5G experience centers of their own. Aside from being a publicity stunt, the centers signaled that Indonesia’s three largest providers were arming up to deploy 5G technology.

“Indonesia will use 5G. Definitely. I have no doubt about it,” said Sharif Lukman Mahfoedz, head of enterprise product and marketing at XL. “But deploying 5G is not just about providers’ readiness, it is also about the use cases. We need to be confident there are use cases.”

“Use cases” is the key term. Even though providers are generally confident Indonesia will adopt 5G, they are uncertain over when the adoption will begin because consumer use cases remain limited.

“The problem with 5G is that, globally, providers don’t know how to monetize it. There are several known use cases – like self-driving cars – but, realistically, they are not yet a major need,” said Ririek Adriansyah, president director of Telkomsel.

He added 4G technology, which is one rung below 5G, still sufficed in providing the internet capacity to seamlessly stream videos, use messengers and play mobile games, the three most data-demanding activities of the average user.

But for Telkomsel, maintaining 4G is also about maximizing investments. The company spent millions of dollars over the past three years to increase over tenfold its 4G base transceiver station (BTS) arsenal to 65,000 as of the first quarter.