Employees, students boost Internet use total to eight million
Employees, students boost Internet use total to eight million
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Corporate employees in the convenience of their cubicles and
students killing time between classes sent the number of Internet
users in Indonesia rocketing to more than eight million last
year, almost doubling the 4.5 million in 2002.
The Indonesian Association of Internet Service Providers
(APJII) said on Monday that while the number of subscribers in
2003 was modest at 865,706, the number of users reached 8.08
million.
For 2004, the association estimates the number of users will
reach 12 million.
APJII collected data from Internet providers, differentiating
subscribers, as anyone or any company registered with one of the
providers, from users, as anybody using the Internet.
"Many corporations now provide Internet services for their
employees," said Heru Nugroho, the association's secretary-
general.
Employees communicating via cyberspace accounted for 39.5
percent of users in 2003, while the year before it was 19
percent.
Another sign of the trend for companies to become more
Internet-savvy is the 3,764 new Indonesian domains listed last
year -- mostly owned by corporations -- bringing total Indonesian
domains to 19,167.
"Everyone now has an e-mail address printed on their name
card. Otherwise, people will think it's just a kaki lima
(streetside) company," said Heru.
Schools had also joined the race, he said, for fear of being
left behind.
Students are forgetting about Internet kiosks and logging on
at their schools since the computers and connections are provided
just around the corner from their classrooms.
"About 32 percent of users are students browsing in schools
and universities, while Internet users in kiosks dropped way down
to around 3 percent," said Heru.
Internet kiosks initially mushroomed around university
campuses but declined a couple of years ago as the novelty wore
off and personal use spread.
The proportion of users connecting to the cyberworld via
Internet kiosks has steadily declined, from 42 percent in 2001 to
26.8 percent in 2002 and to 3.2 percent last year.
"We need to find an application with wide appeal to revive the
Internet kiosk business," said Michael Sunggiardi, a presidium
member of the Indonesian Internet Kiosks Association (Awari).
Of the Internet kiosks in Indonesia, about 80 percent were now
used as networked games centers, he said.
"A couple of years ago, chat programs were what lured
customers. People stayed for hours (chatting)," he added.
Internet kiosks would not be able to survive if people only
used them for browsing the Net or e-mailing, he said.
APJII estimates that currently there are only 1,700 stalls
from the 2,500 to 3,000 in 2002.
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Year Subscribers Users
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1998 134,000 512,000
1999 256,000 1,000,000
2000 400,000 1,900,000
2001 581,000 4,200,000
2002 667,002 4,500,000
2003 865,706 8,080,000
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Source: Indonesian Association of Internet Service Providers
(APJII)