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Jokowi calls for productive use of internet as Palapa Ring all set to connect Indonesia
Access for all: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (second right), accompanied by Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution (second left), Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung (left) and Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara, signs a board to mark the launch of the Palapa Ring nationwide broadband network at the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Monday
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ccess for all: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (second right), accompanied by Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution (second left), Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung (left) and Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara, signs a board to mark the launch of the Palapa Ring nationwide broadband network at the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Monday.(JP/Seto Wardhana)
In a video conference discussing internet connection between President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo at the State Palace in Jakarta and representatives from the five outermost regions of Indonesia, laughter broke the silence over a report from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).
“Bapak President, a more proper [expansion] for NTT is Nyalanya Tidak Tentu. [The internet] is sometimes strong, other times weak,” said East Nusa Tenggara Deputy Governor Josef Nae Soi from Rote Ndao, the southernmost island of Indonesia.
The story from Rote is also shared by the country’s easternmost parts as West Papua Deputy Governor Mohamad Lakotani told Jokowi in the same video conference that many surrounding regencies were also still faced with slow internet.
Against the backdrop of patchy internet connection in Indonesia’s outermost regions, President Jokowi conducted on Monday the operational launch of the Palapa Ring project, a billion-dollar fiber optic development program to connect all corners of the country. The video conference was part of the launching ceremony.
Monday’s event marked the operation of the Palapa Ring’s east package, which covers the country’s eastern region including Papua, West Papua and East Nusa Tenggara, while the Ring’s west and central package have already been operational since last year.
“The Palapa Ring is hoped to be able to bring justice to all Indonesian citizens from Sabang to Merauke, from Miangas to Rote, to have an equal chance of accessing advanced technology and high-speed connectivity,” said Jokowi.
Although Indonesia is home to a huge proportion of the world’s Facebook and Twitter users, when it comes to internet usage, the country suffers from unequal access, proficiency discrepancies and inadequate infrastructure.
Although 171 million people, almost 65 percent of the population, were already connected to the internet in 2018, internet speed in the country remains the lowest in Asia Pacific with a high cost to access data relative to per capita income of the population.
President Jokowi emphasized that greater digital connectivity in the remote area should not be used as a means to spread misinformation and hate speech.
“It should be remembered that the development of more advanced digital technology and connectivity should not be misused [for] hate speech, no. [The Palapa Ring] should not be used for that,” said Jokowi, calling instead on citizens to wisely use the internet to unlock potential for prosperity and to advance the country’s unity and communities.
The Palapa Ring was one of the government’s public private partnership (PPP) projects. Under the availability payment scheme, the private sector builds and has a concession operation period for 15 years before the ownership of the asset is transferred to the government.
The Rp 21.63 trillion (US$1.53 billion) project was targeted to bring internet connectivity to 5.8 million citizens in 57 cities and regencies using 12,148 kilometers of fiber-optic cable and 55 microwave link hops.
Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said the Palapa Ring’s eastern package, which brought connectivity to 30 regencies in Papua and 42 regencies in West Papua, represented the government’s “Indonesia-centric” infrastructure development.
The government will build an additional 4,000 base transceiver station (BTS) towers by the end of next year to bring greater internet coverage to the remote areas.
With the operation of the additional BTS towers, it was hoped that the citizens in the remote areas of the country could have internet access, Rudiantara said, adding that the towers would be built by the Telecommunications and Information Accessibility Agency (Bakti), an agency under his ministry.
Rudiantara added that the next step for the government to further connect the country’s citizens digitally was through its Republic of Indonesia Satellite (nicknamed Satria or “knight” in Indonesian).
The Rp 21.4 trillion satellite project currently being built by French aerospace manufacturer Thales Alenia Space is hoped to be launched in 2022 and become operational by 2023 to bring internet connection to 149,000 locations, most of which are outside of Java.
