Indonesia prepares national information network
Indonesia prepares national information network
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is preparing a massive
telecommunications plan to further enter the Information
Technology era. The project, Nusantara 21, is designed to connect
the whole archipelago to the information superhighway.
This year, the Year of Telecommunications (and Cooperatives)
is timely because Indonesia is starting to make great strides in
global telecommunications and information technology (IT). The
project will involve both private and government participation.
Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave said
that the country had no choice but to embark on such a massive
project. Otherwise, Indonesia would be left behind by other
nations.
Joop said that IT, defined as the integration of
telecommunications and computing hardware and software, would
have the main components of telecommunications, the computer
industry and television broadcasting, as well as the media
industry.
"As a result of the IT revolution, every country, including
Indonesia, is now confronted with a new world economy. This new
world economy has clear features, is high speed, knowledge
intensive, increasingly transactional and highly disciplinarian."
He said that all countries and all sectors would have to
increasingly compete along the dimensions of agility, government
and private; constant learning and upgrading; networking; and
reliability.
A pact, the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), was signed
in March by trade superpowers and developing nations, securing a
US$600 billion deal to scrap tariffs on information technology
products and is a big boost to consumers and manufacturers in the
booming industry.
Thirty-nine countries representing 92.5 percent of the world
trade in infotech products committed themselves to the pact,
which will cut tariffs on computers, telecommunications products,
semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, software
and CD ROMs and scientific instruments by 2000.
The participating nations include the United States, the 15-
member European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong,
Iceland, Indonesia, South Korea, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland,
Turkey, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Israel, India,
Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Rumania, the Slovak Republic,
Thailand and Taiwan.
ITA signatories have pledged to eliminate tariffs on products
such as computers, software and integrated circuits by 2000,
although seven industrializing countries have been given a
deadline of 2005.
Indonesia does not want to be left behind its neighbors in
developing information technology.
Malaysia has an ambitious project dubbed Multimedia Super
Corridor, while Singapore has its own ambition to be an
intelligent island.
Nusantara 21 includes the development of multimedia technology
in several big cities and wideband superlanes by 2001. State-
owned PT Telkom has been assigned to coordinate the project in
cooperation with other institutions, ministries and private
parties.
Nusantara 21 is the country's next major breakthrough in
telecommunications technology after deciding in 1976 to develop
Palapa, a communications satellite system.
The project will link the country's 27 provincial capitals
dominated by 155 Mbps widebands. All existing telecommunications
infrastructure, including satellites, conventional and
terrestrial cables, submarine cables and terrestrial radio links
are to be linked to the new massive telecommunication networks.
Major cities and district capitals should be hooked up by
2001. By then, educational, cultural, health, trade, research and
science, tourism, public service and government applications will
have been sufficiently developed to benefit from the
telecommunications highway.
The project will include Archipelagic Super-lane, Multimedia
Cities and Nusantara Multimedia Community Access Centers.
Any satellites, including the Palapa-B, Palapa-C, Garuda and
the Indostar series, as well as other personal communications
service satellites under operation, will facilitate this access.
Indonesia's agrarian society will be able to have voice-rich
community links, a system offering efficient information and
technology applications.
Infrastructure
Such a network of services will also enhance private
activities, including finance and banking, education, trade and
other development activities.
However, the project will face a number of barriers due to the
current poor telecommunications facilities.
Indonesia's current telephone density figure is still very
low, less than two fixed telephone lines for every 100 people.
There are five million telephone lines in Indonesia for a
population of 200 million. In Jakarta, the fixed telephone line
density now stands at 11 per 100 people.
Indonesia is currently developing telecommunications networks
and infrastructure, including fiber optics, submarine cables,
terrestrial gateways and satellites, for fixed telecommunications
lines and cellular services.
The government has predicted that Indonesia's population in
2020 will exceed 250 million, while the number of fixed telephone
lines in that year should reach at least 20 percent of the total
population, while the number of mobile cellular telephone lines
should be between 10 percent and 20 percent of the country's
total number of telephone lines.
Compared with Japan and most countries in the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, Indonesia still lags in terms of
telephone-line density. The figure in Indonesia is less than 1.8
per 100 people; in Singapore it is 46, Thailand, 13, and
Malaysia, 6.5.
According to analysts, the government will have to work hard
to reach a ratio of four fixed telephone lines for each 100
people by 1998, and 10 per 100 people by 2000 in order to reach
the ratio of 20 per 100 people by 2020.
Quality is also still low and the country's dependency on
imported technology and equipment is high.
Other challenges
The development of Nusantara 21 will also depend on proper
regulations. Telecommunications laws, a broadcasting bill and rules on
copy rights will all influence the project.
The government is currently reviewing Telecommunications Law No 3,
which was issued in 1989. Analysts said that the eight-year-old law
needed "refurbishment". It is not clear when the law will be amended.
In the meantime, the government has passed the broadcasting bill.
The two regulations are playing important roles in the IT
industry.
Suitably qualified human resources will be needed to support and
maintain the project and the telecommunications industry in general.
Joop said that the world used IT in a rather narrow sense, as it
referred mainly to engineering and computer specialists.
More than half of students enrolled in higher education are social
sciences majors; science and technology represented 18 percent and 14
percent respectively, he said.
"The government is currently preparing a plan to develop a
large number of engineering education institutions, most of them are
poly-tech/diploma programs, up to 100 institutions in 2000."
According to the government, pure IT education began being offered
in universities about 10 years ago. The percentage of IT students is
expected to grow in the next 20 years with relative "slower" speed
compared to the other engineering disciplines.
The rate of increase of students studying in computer science is
about 10 percent to 15 percent per year. In 2000, the student body
will have approximately doubled. (icn)
Table A: Domestic Telecommunications Service
1992 1995 1999
---------------------------------------------------------
Population (millions) 183 192 208
GDP (US$) 622 935 1,117
Lines in service (millions) 1,548 2,764 8,000
Penetration 0.83 1.42 3.84
No of pay phone (thousands) 46 90.9 240
Multimedia ISDN in broadband
major cities services
Table B: Student Enrollment in Higher Education
Field study 1995 2005 2020
---------------------------------------------------------
Engineering 70,000 21,000 500,000
Physic science 95,000 145,000 305,000
Social science 335,000 360,000 395,000
Total 500,000 715,000 1,200,000