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Digital Inclusion
Indonesia reveals plans to bridge digital divide
In an interview with FutureGov, the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (BRTI) has shared its plans to connect half of Asia’s third largest population to the internet by 2015.
Heru Sutadi, the BRTI’s Commissioner, said that while mobile phone coverage of Indonesia’s 17,000 islands has reached 90 per cent, providing more of the archipelago’s 234 million people with access to the internet, particularly in remote areas, has proved more challenging.
An estimated 40 million Indonesians use the internet, according to the Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association (APJII). But while web use has grown from just two million people in the year 2000 - an increase of 2000 per cent - internet penetration is still relatively low at 17 per cent.
“There is still a considerable digital divide in Indonesia, particularly in the east and west parts of the country, and between the big cities and rural villages. We have some big infrastructural issues to overcome. For example, we lack a comprehensive fiber optic network to serve as backbone for services,” said Sutadi.
This year, the Indonesian government has spent US$38 million on efforts to connect the country’s 72,000 villages through broadband internet, and more will be invested with the help of funding from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Telecommunications and Information Working Group (APEC TEL) and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Public sector revenue was the sole source of funding in the early stages of IT infrastructure development in Indonesia, and it has proved difficult to attract private sector support for development projects in remote areas. However, the Palapa Ring project, which aims to bridge the divide between the country’s east and western regions, will see more private sector involvement, Sutadi noted.
Sutadi identified raising capital as a key challenge for the Authority this year, and infrastructure sharing could be a means to reduce cost, he said. Improving internet service quality, security and revising the Telecommunication Act to include broadcasting and content will also figure among his priorities this year.
“We are revising the Telecommunication Act to face up to the digital convergence era. Our existing Telecommunication and Broadcasting Acts increasingly overlap, and this will become more of an issue when we come to adopt IPTV.”
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3 Comments
On 17 September 2010 a curious student wrote:
It's too bad that this article didn't mention what percentage of the Indonesia's population is able to access Internet. I've been looking around for an exact percentage and exact geographical locations that has Internet coverage in Indonesia but I can't seem to find it.
Anyone care to help?
On 18 September 2010 Heru wrote:
Indonesia population: 231 million.
Until now we just have cummulative national data, not based on geographic.
On 13 December 2011 Shoichi Irie wrote:
Hi Eleanor, this website is actually about the puzzling information about Indonesia's digital divide is indeed a great issue. However, I think that villagers or farmers in Indonesia's countryside don't really have the need to own their own internet. If they spend their whole time searching for information and entertainment on the addicting “powers” of the internet, then who is going to supply Indonesia's food?