Parliament States Government Does Not Regulate Removal of Internet Quotas

The Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) says the government does not directly regulate the removal or waiving of internet quotas. Deputy Chair of the House’s Honourable Court (MKD), I Wayan Sudirta, has examined the normative provisions of Article 28 of Law No. 36 of 1999 on Telecommunications, which is currently being tested before the Constitutional Court (MK). Sudirta acted as the DPR’s legal counsel in case numbers 273/PUU-XXIII/2025 and 33/PUU-XXIV/2026 at the Constitutional Court on Wednesday, 4 March 2026. ‘However, regarding the removal and waiving of internet quotas, this is left to market mechanisms, namely healthy competition among network operators,’ he said. Article 28 The amount of charges for the operation of telecommunications networks and/or telecommunications services is to be determined by the operator of the telecommunications network and/or telecommunications service provider based on a formula set by the Government. ‘The provision, in essence, regulates the mechanism for setting telecom tariffs, namely the tariff structure, tariff calculation formula, and government tariff control authority, thus it does not contain provisions on the removal of internet quotas,’ he explained. Therefore, Wayan emphasised that the practice of quota removal is a matter of service delivery by the network operators. Wayan explained that to understand the original intent of the drafters of the Telecommunications Act before it was amended by the Omnibus Law on Job Creation, the DPR first sets out the history of its formulation as recorded in the discussion minutes of the Telecommunications Bill. ‘The discussions essentially show that from the outset the drafters intended tariffs to be left to the market mechanism, i.e., set by the network operators and/or service providers,’ he said. Therefore, from the outset the rule only regulates tariffs or prices of telecommunications services, not the issue of expired internet quotas. Nevertheless, the state still establishes a formula as the basis for tariff determination to prevent two risks: tariffs that are too high due to dominance by certain firms, and tariffs that are too low and predatory. In addition, the DPR also explained developments in regulation after the changes through the Omnibus Law, particularly with the addition of a provision in Article 28(2).