World Bank, as administrator for Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) , in April 2009 has signed a grant agreement for US$1.9 million with the Republic of Indonesia to facilitate access to Internet and associated telecommunication services for people living in remote areas in Java dan Sumatra. Access development and provision are fully financed by GPOBA and supervised by Ministry of Communications and Information’s Directorate General of Applied Telematics (Ditjen Aptel). Minister of Communications and Information, Mohammad Nuh, said that witnessing Indonesia’s development and progress in becoming a knowledge-based society driven by existence and free flow of information is mutually beneficial. Furthermore, targets to be reached with this grant is in line with government efforts in making information more accessible to communities in remote areas. With access to information, economic activities in remote areas will have equal opportunities in developing business potential and access.

This is described as a pilot project so I guess everyone is looking for lessons. We will follow this with interest.

Leased Line Tariffs to be Regulated

Bisnis Indonesia, September 27, 2006
JAKARTA: The Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body (BRTI) will regulate the tariffs for leased lines through a ministerial decree, which is expected to be signed end of this year. The regulator most likely will force network operators to lower leased line tariffs by more than 50 percent to push internet penetration in Indonesia.

BRTI said this in a public meeting with Mastel, internet service providers, and network operators yesterday. Heru Sutadi, a member of BRTI, expected a decline of more than 50% in the tariffs will increase ICT usage, internet interconnection, telephone penetration and increase the number of internet users in Indonesia.

“The regulator expects the decline in leased line tariffs will be followed by the acceleration of local internet content, so that bandwidth doesn’t get used outside the country and internet tariffs can drop significantly,” he said yesterday. Leased line is the network that connects internet service provider with retail customers, also called E1.

BRTI said investment estimate during the network construction 10 to 15 years ago had to include depreciation. Fifteen years ago, the price for each kilometer of E1 was about 90 million rupiah, which has drastically declined to about 3 million rupiah at present.

According to the post and telecommunication directorate general (DG POSTEL), Telkom, Indosat and Excelcomindo are the major operators in the sector.

Mastel estimated that the leased line tariffs in Indonesia is 48 times more expensive than India. Internet service operators have said that the high tariffs made internet costs for customers. The Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers expects the decline in leased line tariffs will push for a healthy competition in providing internet to retail customers.

Heru said the decline in leased line tariffs will be followed by the plan to build domestic optic fiber network (Palapa ring), while the line to outside the country is currently being tendered. “The number of internet users will rise significantly considering that retail tariffs will surely fall,” he said.

According to data from the internet association, there are between 16 million and 20 million internet users in Indonesia, or about 8 percent of the population. Sarwoto Atmosumarno, head of long distance division at PT Telkom, said that the company basically approves of BRTI plan, especially in the era of multi-operators, when the prices for telecommunication services should be competitive.

“The regulator must see whether leased line service is a monopoly or not that needs to be regulated,” he said
to Bisnis yesterday. Sarwoto also said that regulator in determining the tariffs should not violate the law, which stipulates that BRTI has the right to establish the formula, and not the tariffs itself. Thus far, the regulator has not applied this rule, for example in the fixed telephone tariffs, he said.

BY ANJANA Samarasinghe (Daily News) www.dailynews.lk

THE Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has allocated Rs. 2.5 million for the “eNABLE” project this year.

“eNABLE” is a project which will serve communities in remort areas with special emphasis on women and people with disabilities. The project has empowered the universal access/service concept, which facilitates the communication needs of everybody.

Under this project telecommunication facilities have been granted for Ranaviru villages, Homes for children with disabilities and homes for elders.

Director, Legal Affairs of the TRC P. R. Amarasiri said this year TRC expects to establish five new ICT centres in Ratmalana, Ragama, Matale, Wattegama and in the South. These centers will specially focus on empowering people with disabilities through ICT.

These centres will consist of computers, printers, facsimile facilities, Internet access and payphone facilities.

The TRCSL also hopes to empower women who are involved in cottage industries in rural areas through the use of ICT. The main objective of this programme is to introduce suitable software for women entrepreneurs in rural areas to enhance their businesses.

‘Now we are in process of finding appropriate software that could be needful for their businesses’, Amarasiri said.

The TRCSL also established an ICT centre in Thalawa, Anuradhapura where many rural women and children were able to access Internet and enjoy other telecommunication facilities.

The “eNABLE” encouraged service providers to construct payphone booths that can be easily used by people with disabilities.

It been also introduced assistive technologies that has provided telecommunication services for hearing impaired citizens for the first time in Sri Lanka.

At the beginning TRCSL had to host the project but today almost every service provider has joined hands with TRCSL for the project.

Any society or any community could request to establish telecommunication facilities such as payphone booths for their villages through the TRC, she said.

In 2004 the total number of fixed phones recorded was 991,239 and it was 1,130,923 in September 2005. Out of the total number of fixed phones last year 911,553 were land phones and the balance were wireless local loops.

The total distribution of fixed phones provincial wise in September last year were Western Province 696,397, Southern 89,746, Central 102,895, Sabaragamuwa 52,263, Uva 31,996, North Central 30,947, North Western 69,148, Eastern 39,198 and Northern 18,333.

In June 2005 applicants for fixed phones reported in the waiting list were 325,956.

The total number of mobile subscribers recorded 3,084,845 in the third quarter of 2005 and Internet and email subscribers were recorded at 111,259 (provisional). ]]> http://lirneasia.net/2006/01/trc-allocates-rs-25m-for-enable-project-new-ict-centres-2/feed/ 2 http://lirneasia.net/2005/10/findings-from-lirneasia-project-covered-by-indonesian-papers/ http://lirneasia.net/2005/10/findings-from-lirneasia-project-covered-by-indonesian-papers/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2005 08:58:41 +0000 Divakar Goswami http://www.lirneasia.net/2005/10/findings-from-lirneasia-project-covered-by-indonesian-papers/ Findings from Indonesian study WiFi Access Innovations by LIRNEasia researchers, Divakar Goswami & Onno Purbo were presented at a press conference at the Jakarta Hilton, Indonesia on October 1. The results from the study have been covered by Indonesian newspapers. The news story by Rakyatmerdeka is online and can be found here. Divakar and Onno [...]]]> Findings from Indonesian study WiFi Access Innovations by LIRNEasia researchers, Divakar Goswami & Onno Purbo were presented at a press conference at the Jakarta Hilton, Indonesia on October 1. The results from the study have been covered by Indonesian newspapers. The news story by Rakyatmerdeka is online and can be found here.

Divakar and Onno identified high leased prices as the main factor forcing ISPs to deploy their own WiFi-based networks to connect customers to the last mile. Leased line prices in  Indonesia are about three to four times the price for similar bandwidth in India or the European Union. In the case of a 2mbps local link, Indonesian prices are more than 48 times the price compared to India. This is the primary reason why Internet service in Indonesia is also three to four times as expensive compared to many other Asian and European countries. Internet penetration in  is 0.4%, much lower than its ASEAN counterparts and the Asian average of 2.4% (ITU 2003).
According to the researchers, non-independent regulation coupled with a non-competitive market environment for telecommunication services are the contributory factors for high leased line prices and consequently of low penetration of the Internet in Indonesia. The silver lining is that Indonesia may be sitting on the cusp of explosive Internet growth if conducive regulatory and market conditions are created.