'Innovative' approach promotes use of WiFi in RI
'Innovative' approach promotes use of WiFi in RI
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
For Indonesians, the saying "where there's a will, there's a way"
takes on a special meaning. Under pressure, their minds click
creatively, finding nooks, crannies, bypasses and loopholes to
attain objectives when the normal path is strewn with stumbling
blocks.
From such conditions, unusual practices and procedures emerge
-- some improper, but others quite inventive. The development in
the use of Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) technology in Indonesia is an
example of a little bit of both.
Although the use of WiFi to surf the Internet using "hotspots"
at hip cafes has yet to gain great popularity, the technology
scores big time in other places.
"In Indonesia, WiFi is not only used as an access network by
Internet service providers (ISPs) to reach customers' houses, but
also as a backbone network to haul Internet traffic over large
distances," said director of organizational development and
projects of LIRNEasia, Divakar Goswami, recently.
"This situation is unique because in most countries, ISPs use
wired options to reach customers and lease backbone networks
from telecom operators," he said, adding that at least 37 cities
from Medan to Jayapura had been cataloged as utilizing WiFi as a
backbone or access network.
Goswami and information and communication technology (ICT)
expert Onno Purbo, under LIRNEasia -- a regional ICT policy and
regulation capacity building organization -- conducted a study on
WiFi and Internet networks in Indonesia this August.
WiFi is a broadband networking technology that allows people
to connect various peripherals and share an Internet connection
using the airwaves. Using transceivers operating at a frequency
of 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) -- recently unlicensed by the government
-- WiFi has the ability to transfer data at up to 11 megabits per
second (Mbps) within a radius of 50 meters, and extendible to 15
kilometers.
Internet users in other countries use the technology merely to
stay online anywhere within a small specified area, called a
hotspot, without the hassle of using cables, but are connected to
their ISPs through reliable high-speed cable.
In Indonesia, said Goswami, many ISPs used WiFi at the 5.8 GHz
frequency, suitable for long range communications of up to a 60-
km radius, to connect customers to cyberspace -- a free but
illegal practice, as the government has yet to liberate the
frequency.
"One reason for this 'innovative' use of WiFi in Indonesia is
the high annual leased-line fees charged by Telkom or Indosat,"
said Goswami. According to the study, most of the 174 licensed
ISPs, in addition to some 50 unlicensed ISPs, use WiFi to avoid
paying high prices.
The annual domestic leased-line cost for a 2-kilometer link
with a capacity of 2 Mbps here, for example, was US$18,000,
almost four times the $4,802 applied on average in Europe, and a
whopping 48 times more costly than the $376 applied in India.
The annual fee for an international link from Indosat of
$108,528, according to the study, is almost triple the $36,868
charged in Denmark and quadruple the $29,555 in India.
Expensive leased-lines translate to high retail prices for
customers. To recoup the costs, a customer -- a school, office,
or neighborhood -- can sublet the connection further to other
customers, which then share the already-limited connection.
"Many people make use of it, as it is cheap (as compared to
leased-lines)," said Michael S. Sunggiardi from the Indonesian
Wireless Local Area Network and Internet Association.
As a result, he said, there can be much interference to
connections, especially as the technology uses radio signals that
can be influenced by weather conditions and other disturbances.
"WiFi, however, plays a big role in advancing the Internet
network in Indonesia as an alternative (medium)," added Michael,
who also runs an ISP in Bogor.