Govt to raise USO fee to 1% from 0.75% to boost fixed-line development
Govt to raise USO fee to 1% from 0.75% to boost fixed-line development
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Moving to speed up the development of rural communication
infrastructure, the government is set to increase the universal
service obligation (USO) fee to 1 percent next year, a ministry
official says.
Currently, under Government Regulation No. 28/2005, all
telephone operators must set aside 0.75 percent of their annual
revenue for the state's rural telephone program called USO.
The regulation is effective as of July and applicable
retroactively from the beginning of 2005.
"We will need around Rp 5 trillion to provide communication
access to 43,000 underdeveloped villages nationwide. With the
current 0.75 percent it might take eight years to do so," said
Ministry of Communications and Information director general of
Post and Telecommunications Basuki Yusuf Iskandar on Monday.
With the increase, it is likely that all villages, numbering
more than 65,000 across the country, will be able to enjoy fixed
line communication in the next five years.
Under the current scheme, the state would collect Rp 2.5
trillion in five years.
Meanwhile, apart from the private-participation scheme, the
government has set aside Rp 88.5 billion from the state budget to
set up telephone connections in 5,351 villages throughout the
country.
Next year, it targets to provide 27,000 connections in 10,000
villages.
Indonesia is among the countries with the lowest telephone
density in Asia. In 2004, only 8.8 million of the country's 220
million people had access to fixed-line phones, prompting a more
rapid growth in cellular phone users.
In comparison, Malaysia reported in 2003 that 25 percent of
its population had fixed-line telephones.
Minister of Communications and Information Sofyan Djalil
signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday on the USO program
with the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of the
Empowerment of Underdeveloped Areas. The latter ministries are to
provide data on which villages shall be prioritized.
The USO program in Indonesia uses satellite-based Very Small
Aperture Terminal (VSAT), Internet Protocol based connections,
Portable Fixed Satellite or Fixed Wireless Access, as many of the
islands in the archipelago cannot be reached by fixed cables.
The government has appointed four operators to implement the
rural telephone program, namely PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara
(PSN), PT Citra Sari Makmur (CSM), PT Telkom and PT Mandara
Selular Indonesia.
Within the USO program, once the villages have access to
fixed-line communications, they will also be upgraded with
Internet connection.
According to data from the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU), the telephone penetration rate in Indonesia stands
at 8 percent on average for both fixed lines and cellular phones,
while the computer penetration rate is about 4 percent.