Telecommunications development plan

By Furqon I. Hanief

JAKARTA (JP): The world has been retaining its fever since Al Gore, vice-president of the United States, declared the idea of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII). The business society and government officials were stunned to learn of the vigorous possibilities of the coming era.

With the advent of GII it means that there will be a huge hardware system which can deliver information to anywhere in the world, regardless of borders. Therefore, distribution of information could run very fast, and access of knowledge for each individual will suddenly rise. This is one of the key factors in figuring out the quality of mankind, where the quality of human resources is based on access to technology and information.

The central goals of technology and information have long been sought after in the developed countries, subsequently some pessimistic opinions regarding this phenomenon will lessen the bargaining position of the developing countries toward the owners of technology and information. Additionally, the domination of funds and technology possessed by the developed countries diminishes the alternatives of the developing countries, such as Indonesia, to enjoying the era of information, except merely acting as the users of the global systems.

According to the above constellation, a question may emerge whether the GII will cause the developing countries to become the losers. The answer to this question depends on how each country prepares itself to deal with the new current of technology and information.

Based on this observation, several countries have stipulated the idea of National Information Infrastructure. In Indonesia, a recent meeting at the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications asserted the idea of National Information Infrastructure, or INFONAS (Informasi Infrastruktur Nasional). The purpose of this paper was to bring up some remarks on the above idea.

Just like other commodities, the success of the telecommunications business in the era of globalization is computed by the competitive ability of this commodity. In the field of telecommunications services, competitive ability is suggested by the traffic performance, whereby the more optimal traffic is used, the more competitive the system of telecommunications service.

The most important factor in optimizing the traffic is the size of the market. In other words, it is necessary to have a large pool of consumers with diverse types of services. It requires a high capacity telecom facility which is able to give large access to the consumers. The objective of this effort parallels the equalizing quest of telecom service for the society.

The attempt to enlarge the market should be accompanied by activities which encourage consumers to intensify their behavior of using telecom facilities. It may start from imposing favorable tariffs, especially lowering long distant call rates. Imposing favorable long distance charges is important since it directly influences the decreasing gap between central areas and peripheries and the effort to connect the people throughout the country. Furthermore, we should lead the telecom operators to provide high accountability of service quality for the users.

Through expanding the telecom consumers, bigger national markets are opened for industry and small/medium operators. By sub-franchising cooperation between big operator/network providers and small/medium operators of specific subscribers, it broadens the opportunity for small and medium enterprises to enter the profitable telecommunication service business.

Besides traffic as a hardware component, we also have to comprehend the software aspects. In the past 50 years, we can see how much Hollywood has dominated the entertainment business throughout the world, including Indonesia. CNN and other Western news stations greatly influence the agenda of the local newspapers in developing countries. Ironically, we often find newspapers from developing countries quoting some articles about certain events happening in another developing countries from the western news stations.

The existence of GII will strengthen the domination of the software aspects from the developed countries toward the developing countries. It again shows how the powerful flow of information has put developing countries, like Indonesia, in the position of information users. Furthermore, GII will in some ways be controlled by information producers from developed countries. Before it happens, we should take some steps to reduce the gap between both parties.

We should take advantage of Indonesia's geographical position, which is in the most dynamic area in the world. It means a lot of parties are looking for accurate information on resources, regulations and other business aspects which are relevant for their prospect of investment and trade.

This facility will encourage the flow of capital, goods and services from and to this region. Besides that, this facility can be used for tourism and cultural promotion which will encourage more tourists to visit Indonesia.

Most tourists choose a destination after they have sufficient information about the offered tourism destinations. In short, such information will be well worth marketing by the developed countries, therefore, it is important for us now to build reliable information and entertainment producers which are capable of meeting the market demand from both domestic and international users. And again, this line of business will be suitable for small and medium business entities to join.

The success of NII (INFONAS) depends on three factors: technology, financial support and skills. We all need access to maximize national potential resources. We should not put telecommunications and information activities solely as a multiplying effect, but also as a key factor in providing unlimited access of information to all levels of society. This is very important for the process of democratization, in uniting the people throughout the country as well as enlightening the nation.

The writer is executive director of the Indonesian Telecommunications Society.